20 cops to get training in hostage negotiation

By the end of the year, the city police will have its own team of trained hostage negotiators.

By the end of the year, the city police will have its own team of trained hostage negotiators.

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In the next two months, experts from a hostage negotiation institute in the UK are expected to come down and conduct a two-week training session with 20 city policemen.

On November 29, 2010, the Hindustan Times had reported about a seminar held by the city police to guide its personnel in basic hostage negotiation exercises. “We want to ensure that if a hostage-like situation arises, we have trained personnel,” said Amitabh Gupta, additional commissioner of police (western region), who is the coordinator of the exercise.

Only KL Prasad, the state intelligence department chief, KP Raghuvanshi, Thane police commissioner, Sanjay Barve, director of the Maharashtra Police Academy in Nashik, and Shalini Sharma, inspector with the crime intelligence unit, have received this training abroad.

Sharma, who received training in 2010 from the Hostage Negotiation and Crisis Management Institute, UK, said: “I will facilitate the programme when trainers from the UK come here.”

“We do not have any institute in India that can train officers in hostage negotiation. We can’t afford to send them outside for training regularly,” Gupta said, adding that they would select three persons from the pool who will train other officers every year.

“Buying time from the captor is one of the most important part of the training as it is crucial in such situations,” Gupta said.