With a view to equipping girl students with necessary self-defence skills to take care of their own safety, the special training programme started by the Kangra police has so far trained 12,000 girls of Classes 9 and 10 from over 400 government schools across the district in unarmed combat.
The training programme is being run under the Rashtriya Madhyamik Siksha Abhiyan (RMSA) which stresses upon the overall development of the students.
Deputy superintendent of police (DSP-headquarters), Kangra Hitesh Lakhanpal said that the programme was started in June, following signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) between the education department and the police.
"Special male and female trainers of the police department having expertise in unarmed combat have been engaged at local government schools these days for this purpose," said Lakhanpal.
The police department has deployed 65 special male and female trainers who are imparting ten-day training to the girl students in government schools.
A special class of 70 minutes is being held in the schools to train girls in unarmed combat like karate and taekwondo. "We are focusing on the girls students, studying in Classes 9 and 10 and till now 12,000 girls have been trained in unarmed combat," said Lakhanpal. He added that the training programme, scheduled to end in the month of October, has been extended to cover more schools in Kangra.
"We are yet to cover 6,700 more girl students and the training programme may extend to the year-end," said Lakhanpal. The trainers have covered all big schools in the district and now they are visiting the schools situated in far-flung areas.
"Training schedule for the schools having small number of students has been clubbed so that maximum number could be covered during one camp," he said.
However, the schools in the remote areas, despite having small number of students, are beng covered separately, he added. Lakhanpal said the special feature of the training programme is that the participants are being given Rs 100 per day for refreshment.
"We are yet to cover 6,700 more girl students and the training programme may extend to the year-end," said Lakhanpal. The trainers have covered all big schools in the district and now they are visiting the schools situated in far-flung areas.
"Training schedule for the schools having small number of students has been clubbed so that maximum number could be covered during one camp," he said.
However, the schools in the remote areas, despite having small number of students, are beng covered separately, he added. Lakhanpal said the special feature of the training programme is that the participants are being given Rs 100 per day for refreshment.