LAHORE: The new anti-terrorism force the Punjab government in Pakistan’s most populous province wants to raise by spending billions will become operational no sooner than the end of the next year.
According to sources, the new force will be a modern, resourceful and sophisticated form of the existing Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) of the Punjab police. The government has already invited applications for initially recruiting 500 personnel for the new force. Another batch of the same number will be recruited after some time.
The government intends to employ a total of 2,000 highly trained and motivated personnel for it. The sources said the existing CTD had powers to go after terrorists, detain and arrest them or to raid their hideouts. But to exercise these powers all over the province, the CTD had a meagre 135 personnel strength and that too borrowed from Elite Force.
The rest of the Elite personnel are mainly guarding VVIPs or sensitive places. They said the new recruits would be trained on Turkish anti-terrorism setup model.
For the purpose, a Turkish team staying in Punjab had been requested to prepare the training modules. The training period for the new force would be from eight to 10 months. And after their training, the 135 men would be returned to the police department.
The home department and the top police officials were busy setting the criteria for officials and officers of the new force, elaborating what each of them was required to do while fighting terrorism. internews
