Chandigarh, June 8
The Maharaja Ranjit Singh Punjab Police Academy will add yet another feather to its cap in July or August this year when it starts training the Afghan Police on its Phillaur campus.
The Bureau of Police Research and Development, of the Union Ministry of Home Affairs, has reportedly approached the Punjab Police Academy to ascertain whether it could train a select band of police officers and instructors from Afghanistan.
It is for the first time that the PPA would be training a select band of policemen from a foreign country. The request has been pending with the Union Home Ministry for a long time. The PPA has agreed to train as many as 24 police officers and instructors from Afghanistan from July or August this year.
The Additional Director-General of Police-cum-Director Principal of PPA, Phillaur, Dr G.S. Aujla, confirmed that the PPA has been chosen to train the select band of police officers and instructors from Afghanistan.
The BPRD had sounded the Punjab Police sometime early this year about the possibility of training Afghan police officials. The Punjab Police had given its verbal consent to take up the assignment, a formal communique has now been received by it approving Phillaur as the training venue.
The modalities are being worked out on government-to-government basis. The Afghan authorities are reportedly in touch with the Union Home Ministry. The Afghanis are keen that training must start at the earliest as the officers and instructors to be trained at Phillaur would go back to conduct refresher and orientation courses.
“Some interpreters and other help would be required to make the training meaningful and practical,” said Dr Aujla maintaining that the PPA would live up to its reputation of being one of the premier police training institutes in this part of the world.
Of late the PPA has been receiving regular visitors from various police organisations abroad including the United Kingdom. Besides, it has been training policemen and officers from various States on regular basis.
