In view of the need of a crowd management within the Indian Railways premises and to man its growing infrastructure, the national transporter security arm- Railway Protection Force (RPF) - are undergoing training at the Rapid Action Force (RAF) Academy for Public Order (RAPO), the only institute in the country specialized for public order management (POM). The training module mainly focuses on crowd / riot control, law and order, mob psychology, gender sensitization and human rights.
The newly inducted IRPSF probationers of Civil Service Examination (CSE)-2020 batch have been undergoing the POM course from January 23 to January 28, 2023 at the Meerut based RAPO.
As per the course module the officers of RPF will be trained on mob psychology, public order management, anti-riot drill, platoon formation, less lethal weapons / equipment, future weapons, negotiation skill / conflict management and UAV. After the training these Officers will be able to deal crowd / riot with less lethal approach with minimum force within the railway premises.
To hone better skills in the field, even 41 non-gazetted RPF officers are seeking training at RAPO called as Training of Trainer (TOT) course (from January 9 to February 6, 2023) who will have to further relay the Public Order management to the trainees of RPF at RPF training centres at several locations in the country.
The opening ceremony of the course was addressed by Akhilesh Kumar Singh, DIGP /Principal, RAPO. Singh highlighted the key and important role of Indian railway and Role of RPF for the protection of Indian Railways. “POM is a very dynamic and challenging domain in the current world scenario and Officers / personnel of all the security forces must have the practical knowledge and training to handle such situations effectively,” Singh said in his address to the officers.
To its credit, International police of Myanmar & Zimbabwe also received training at RAPO besides the police forces from all across the states of India. “Since its foundation of the RAPO, it has trained more than 18000 Officers / personnel of State Police i.e. Indian Army, BSF, ITBP, RPF, Gujarat police, Tripura, Meghalaya, Bihar, Delhi, Chandigarh, Uttar Pradesh, J&K, Haryana, Odisha, Tamil Nadu and Rajasthan,” Akhilesh Singh mentioned on the occasion.