Jolted, state cops scramble to get act together

 Fighting hi-tech enemy with obsolete weapons

Jupinderjit Singh

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 2 

The Punjab Police is literally fighting anti-social elements with their hands tied at their back. Without sophisticated weapons and ammunition and training limited to few, policemen need a major push in training and equipment to take on Dinanagar-style terror attacks in better way.

The Centre's modernisation grant of Rs 100 crore for equipment and training of the police force is lying unused due to a delay in the execution of previous works.

The state police have modern weaponry, including MP (machine pistol)-series guns, but the ammunition provided by the state government is too old to be used.

This is the status of the training of the Punjab Police — which has recently been lauded by the Union Home Minister for preventing a major terror attack in Dinanagar.

The terror attack may change this scenario as the focus to arm the policemen well and to train them better and regularly is back in focus.

The question of funds and political will remains. Though the Centre has provided funds for weapons, the state government —whose purse strings are tighter than ever — has not given funds to buy ammunition for almost a decade.

CAG report

A Comptroller and Auditor General report (CAG) released in March reveals the shocking state of ill-preparedness. 

Ten light machine guns (5.56 mm) and 18 Under Breeze Grenade Launchers for SG 553 rifles — bought from Israel and Switzerland three years ago — are lying unused as the compatible ammunition for those is yet to be procured.

The Bahadurgarh central armoury is using outdated cartridges, said the report. The Punjab police do not have an ammunition examiner also.

As many as 234 SG-553 Assault Rifles bought at a cost of Rs 3.55 crore from a Switzerland firm in May 2010 are also lying unused. The department purchased 234 magnifying reflex sights at an additional cost of Rs 1.48 crore from a USA-based firm to be fitted on the rifles. But those can't be fitted for want of an adapter.

The police are still using 10.55 lakh bullets of 9mm and 48.11 lakh rounds of ammunition of other weapons that have also outlived their utility by 10 years. 

Giving details of the obsolete arms, the audit observed that 21,016 rifles (.303) and 4,839 muskets (.410) and 5,809 sten guns are still lying with field units awaiting replacement.

Training needs priority

While the condition of weaponry needs to be upgraded, the training of police personnel for a terror attack should be given top priority.

DGP (Training) SK Sharma told The Tribune that deliberations are on to increase the units of SWAT (Special Weapons and Tactics Team) which did a commendable job in the Dinanagar terror attack. 

He said training the force was not a big issue but deploying them only for special operations was a big task.

"We are meeting this week to decide on how many more teams of SWAT or crack commandos are required and the logistics. We need to decide whether such teams will be at the disposal of the SSP or the range officers," the DGP said. 

"There is a feeling that as the SSP of a district will be the first to respond to a situation, a team should be at his disposal. But then, we have to safeguard that these specially trained commandos are not deployed for other duty under any circumstances," he said.

He said the force needs to upgrade its weapons and ammunition also. "Modernisation is a regular process. We always need to upgrade. However, there are certain weapons like rocket launches which can't be in the domain of the police. We can use grenade launchers. We are going to send a requisition for more grenade launchers," he said.

On training, Sharma said that besides basic training at the time of induction, courses are conducted at the time of promotion also. 

"We keep conducting refresher and special courses. Some are trained for VIP security specially, others for operation in built-in areas. But the problem is not of training. The problem is to keep them in shape for a specialised job. For this, they should not be deployed for other duties. This is the most difficult provision," he said.