As is its wont, the administration has woken up after the crisis situation is over. After the hostage-like situation in Kurla on Monday, in which Patna youth Rahul Raj, 25, held several passengers captive on board a BEST bus (it ended with Rahul killed in an encounter), the authorities have decided to form special squads at every police station to tackle similar situations in future.
A senior official of Mumbai police said on condition of anonymity that a meeting was conducted by police commissioner Hasan Gafoor, and decision was taken to form special squads, trained to tackle hostage situations. “It was decided that there will be teams, trai-ned by National Security Guards (NSG) and CRPF to tackle hostage situations,” said the official.
“We are training some officers to tac-kle hostage situation,” said Gafoor. “Officers will be picked from every police station.”
The special squ-ads will be trained to coax hijackers into releasing hostages, persuade the hijackers to surrender and if necessary, immobilise them. They will be also trained to eliminate hijackers, but killing would be the last resort.
Mumbai police already have two special squads — Quick Response Team (QRT) and the Special Operations Squad (SOS) — which are equipped and trained to handle such situations. “However, the administration feels that local police and the ground force, who are the first to arrive during such incidents, should also be trained to handle such situations,” the officer said.
