Deploying soon: Karnataka Police's first batch of all-woman Garuda commandos

The commandos will be deployed in areas with high concentration of IT-BT companies, besides sensitive areas, including coastal Karnataka.

Seventeen young women, mostly from villages across Karnataka, are training to shoot, handle explosives, rappel, rope walk, handle terror, as they build grit and endurance, for 12 hours a day. (Photo | EPS) 

What will emerge is a lean, mean team -- the first batch of the all-woman Garuda commandos of the Karnataka Police. (Photo | EPS)

The special operational team Garuda, Karnataka’s own anti-terror force, was formed in 2010, and for the first time this year, the department will be training 50 women to join the force. (Photo | EPS)

Pre-induction training is on at Bengaluru’s Centre for Counter Terrorism for these 17 women, under the Deputy Director, Lt Col Rohit Nayak and his team led by Superintendent of Police M L Madhura Veena. (Photo | EPS)

The Response Counter Terrorism Team will be based in Bengaluru, and can reach any part of the city in 30 minutes. The commandos will be deployed in areas with high concentration of IT-BT companies, besides sensitive areas, including coastal Karnataka. (Photo | EPS)

The recruits got enough grit to be trained into commandos with special counter-terrorism skills such as handling weapons, Improvised Explosive Devices, explosives, rope work and communication, CAD (computer-aided design) and navigation, medical first aid and PIN (planning, intelligence and negotiation) etc. (Photo | EPS)

After two months of training, they will have to write an examination, after which they will be inducted into the team .(Photo | EPS)

“They will form the first all-woman commando team and are undergoing training to handle any kind of terror attack or save victims of such attacks,” said Madhura Veena, the only woman SP in the Centre for Counter Terrorism, of the Internal Security Division (ISD). (Photo | EPS)

(Photo | EPS)