Counter-insurgency school changes course

The blueprint for India’s answer to terror post Mumbai’s 26/11 nightmare is being drawn up in Mizoram, 3,200 km away, reports Rahul Karmakar.

The blueprint for India’s answer to terror post Mumbai’s 26/11 nightmare is being drawn up in Mizoram, 3,200 km away.

HT Image

When the Counter-Insurgency and Jungle Warfare School (CIJSW) here, some 130 km from State capital Aizawl, was set up in 1970, the credo was: “Fight a guerrilla like a guerrilla.” The guerrilla, who followed certain ‘ethics of bush war’, is an endangered species today, having evolved into terrorists and shifted from the jungles to the urban landscape. CIJWS has evolved too in the last couple of months.

“Our regular job is to train the armed forces in India and abroad to beat guerrillas in their own game,” CIJWS commandant Brigadier Anil K Ram told HT. “But we have been updating ourselves to deal with the changing face of extremism, tailoring special courses for the police, who would be manning the battlefields of the future – thickly populated urban centres.”

Accordingly, CIJWS has devoted three of its 13 training ranges to hostage intervention. Simulated urban conditions mark the hostage intervention ranges. New ‘kill houses’ – many-roomed buildings with mannequins and moving targets – turn into concrete jungle war zones. “With raptor sights and paintball guns, trainees are divided into terrorists and counter-terrorists, each encouraged to outwit the other in innovate ways,” Brigadier Ram said.