Elite commandos to be deployed for Kumbh, training begins

LUCKNOW : An elite group of Special Police Operations Team (SPOT) commandos will be deployed during the Kumbh Mela to be held on the banks of the Sangam in Allahabad early next year.

DGP OP Singh on Tuesday inaugurated a four-month rigorous training programme for these commandos at the ATS training headquarters in Lucknow’s Sarojini Nagar. He said experts from the Special Protection Group (SPG), which provides proximate security to the Prime Minister and former prime ministers, the Border Security Force (BSF) and the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), will train the SPOT commandos of the UP ATS.

The DGP said SPOT was being raised a specialised counter-terror force on the lines of the National Security Guard (NSG), to handle terror operations, including counter-hijacking tasks, bomb disposal and hostage-rescue operations.

“There is a plan to deploy SPOT commandos of UP ATS during the Ardh Kumbh (now known as Kumbh) to be observed from January 15 to March 4, 2019 after successful completion of their training programme,” he said. Initially, nine teams comprising 56 police personnel will be trained, he said. The first phase of training will last a month and those who clear it will join the second phase spanning three months. Inspector general (IG), UP ATS, Asim Arun said these SPOT commandos will be stationed in Lucknow, Varanasi and Ghaziabad initially, and will move from there to different places as per their requirement.

He said the SPOT commandos will be trained in combat fitness, proximate use of force wherein they will be taught to hit opponents on vulnerable parts of the body, Philippines martial arts, which is considered a better bare handed combat technique than judo, special weapon tactics and special police tactics. The IG said world-class facilities will be arranged at the SPOT training headquarters in Sarojini Nagar.

7 WOMEN JOIN SPOT

Other than men, seven women police personnel had volunteered to join SPOT. They became a part of the training programme from Tuesday. DGP OP Singh said it was worth appreciating that women were also willing to join such a rigorous training programme and ready to fight in the toughest situations. Asim Arun said the women combat commandos will be a real asset for SPOT, but they will have to clear the combat fitness training programme necessary for it.