First of its kind in India, the Assam police has deployed its first batch of women commando force, Virangana, to protect women’s dignity and rights in the state capital.
The women commandos, trained in “silent drill” known only to US marines, in martial arts, bike riding and horse riding along with handling of lethal and non-lethal arms, was inducted into the Assam police formally by chief minister Tarun Gogoi here on Saturday.
The women commandos, in black uniform and donning violet caps, have been trained to act swiftly against eve-teasers or anyone trying to harm a woman’s modesty.
Apart from lethal small arms, the women commandos will carry a pouch containing non-lethal ammunition along with latest electronic devices used to immobilise a target.
In an obvious attempt to specialise these commandos to protect women, the “viranganas” were also educated about legal rights of women.
Inspector general of police (training and armed police) Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta, who was the architect of women commando force, said, “Virangana is the lone such multi-tasking women commando unit in the country. These women commandoes went through rigorous training in Tamil Nadu.”
Informing that “Viranganas” will rule the streets of capital city shortly, Mr Mahanta said, “There are 30 bikes for the team for the time being and they will be posted across Guwahati in different platoons.” The city police is also planning to set up a separate helpline number especially for women in distress, which will be connected to Viangana unit.
Director General of Police J.N. Choudhury said that the woman commandos are likely to be deployed in vulnerable places of the city like bars, discos, pubs and clubs and would spread across the state over a period of time. The Assam police had started process of raising women commando force in May itself but G.S. Road incident of molestation of a girl by some miscreants accelerated the process, said one of the trainers who also stressed the need of keeping the commandos under frequent orientation training besides providing them necessary infrastructure to work effectively.