Commandos of Force One, the state’s first responders to terror, have completed a comprehensive training session at the High Energy Materials Research Laboratory (HEMRL) of the Defence Research Development Organisation in Pune to learn more about high-energy blast situations.

The HEMRL is the lone laboratory in India where development research and experiments are carried out in the entire range of high-energy materials, along with facilities to understand how the high-energy explosives work in a crime situation. According to S Jagannathan, Deputy Inspector General, Force One, this level of intensive training is needed to understand how to handle certain explosives in an offence situation, to gain entry, and also to update them with upgraded levels of explosives.

The training touched all aspects, especially on how to use certain explosives to break a hostage situation and for demolition exercises. The commandos underwent an intensive theory session on every chemical formations used by terrorists along with practical exercises in a makeshift facility on the HEMRL premises.

On the physical training front, the training review has shown a commendable improvement, with speed march and long stretch run extending over 20 km with 18 kg on person.

The next set of training is scheduled to begin soon and one of the exercises will be “instinctive shooting” that involves the commando to cut the response time to the minimum possible.

According to Jagannathan, the Force One at this stage has over 200 commandos, a figure that might come down as there is a proposal to have a committee of experts outside their training who will finally decide on the recruitment based on each commando’s performance. The state has also decided that the Quick Response Team will remain with the Mumbai police and Force One will use cadre from its trained personnel.

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