Karnataka Gets All-Women Garuda Team, To Handle Anti-Terror Operations

All-women Garuda team in Karnataka: As many as sixteen young women have been selected to join the training for the first batch of the all-woman Garuda commandos of the Karnataka Police.

These women, mostly from villages across Karnataka, are skilled to handle intense situations. They are undergoing rigorous training on shooting, rope walking and handling anti-terror operations such as attacks, treating high-risk explosives, rescuing victims during an ambush and save people of such attacks. This induction would ultimately pave the way for women being posted in frontline operations, ANI reported.

All-women Garuda team in Karnataka:

Karnataka's first all women "Garuda" commando force. Brilliant! @deepolice12 @DgpKarnataka pic.twitter.com/7xl7GtPodD

— DP SATISH (@dp_satish) February 6, 2021

As per The New Indian Express, currently, the training of the special operational team 'Garuda', Karnataka's own anti-terror force, is underway at Bengaluru's Centre for Counter-Terrorism, led by police official ML Madhura Veena. This team was formed in 2010, however, for the first time this year, the department will be training at least 50 women to join the force. 

"The Garuda force of Karnataka police has got good training for the last eight years. It also got weapons as well," Senior state police official Bhaskar Rao told ANI after meeting the first batch of all-women commandos. "As of now, we have 170 commandos. After the basic training, we keep them with us for 3-4 years. Continuously they will undergo training about how to tackle terrorism activities. It is an investment in security. To tackle the terrorism activity we are giving training to our own police personnel," Rao said. All-women Garuda team in Karnataka

Thus far, the Karnataka government has sanctioned training to 175 commandos, of which 40 posts were vacant. "For those vacant posts, we thought of training women commandos," the official added. "We are giving good training to the women staff who are below 30 years of age. This training includes physical fitness and weapons handling," he added saying that this is no "ordinary training." 

After the training, these woman commando will have the strength of fighting with 3-4 persons who have weapons with them, he said.

Feature Image Credit: ANI