Army trains 2,000 police, paramilitary men in IED handling

NEW DELHI: Army has trained over 2,000 troops belonging to the central paramilitary forces (CPMF) and various state forces to deal with Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs), frequently used by Maoists to carry out attacks. The training is being conducted at army training facilities located under the Lucknow-based Central Command and over 60,000 police personnel have been trained since 2006 for counter-naxal operations, Army sources said here. The courses are conducted on need basis to train the CPMF troops and state police personnel operating in naxal-hit areas, they said. IEDs are frequently used by the naxal operating in areas of Chattisgarh, Orissa, Jharkhand and other maoist-affected areas. The training imparted by army includes lessons on identification of explosive devices buried in ground and defusing them safely.
Army has a established Standard Operating Procedure (SOP) for handling IEDs which has proved its efficacy in all theatres of operation. Paramilitary forces and state police have developed their own mechanism to identify and defuse the IEDs, but the army reaining has further enhanced these capabilities, the sources said.
The officers who have been assigned the task to train their CPMF and state police counterparts have been pulled out of various infantry and engineers units of the Army. Army troops have a fair idea of the area of operation of state police and CPMF troops in these naxal-affected areas and have been dealing with the menace of IEDs in counter terrorist operations in Jammu and Kashmir and the northeastern states.