Metro's guardian angels of special Kali-bre

NEW DELHI: To demonstrate her combat skills Pooja Singh lets out a yell as she nearly dislocates the arm of her charging dummy attacker, pins her on the ground and almost pushes a pen through the skin just under the aggressor's ear. Singh demonstrates several other fearsome moves to incapacitate her enemy, kindly reminding her audience that her motive as CISF commando is to help arrest antisocial elements and not to hurt anyone.Along with 24 other equally formidable colleagues, she completed the paramilitary force’s first-of-its-kind close-quarter combat training on Thursday and is now watching over passengers at a Metro station in Delhi.
All members to this programme were volunteers who had to report for training three days in a week after completing their daily work shifts. No dropouts were reported from this grueling three-month long training, which left the commandos alone for not more than 10 hours on their training days. They were trained in a close-quarter combat form called ‘Pekiti-Tirsia Kali’ or ‘Kali’ in short, which originated decades ago in Philippines. The combat teaches ways to debilitate an assailant by attacking their joints and using any object around such as hair clips, pens, caps to one’s advantage. Kali is a combat form that has been incorporated in the training of Indian Army’s Special Forces, National Security Guard, the Indian Air Force’s Garud Commando Force and a Chhattisgarh Special Task Force.
“When the chance was offered to us we lost little time in enrolling for this programme. We worked our night shifts from 9 to 6 and then assembled to train for three to four hours immediately after, and reported again to work 11 hours later,” says Kunnu Jha. Jha says she’s roamed the streets of the capital in her civvies and felt vulnerable. “I was attacked by a man a few years ago who snatched my gold chain and fled. I wasn’t one to him get away, I chased him, pushed him down and retrieved my chain. Since then I’ve become more aware about my security and the security of women around me,” says Jha.
Rekha Choudhary, another commando who completed her graduation agrees. “I’ve seen repeated instances of women being harassed in Delhi. More women apart from us should undergo some sort of self-defence training and be prepared to handle situations.”
The 25 women are part of the about 800-strong women contingent of the CISF, which takes care of 135 Metro stations in Delhi. A senior CISF explained the motive behind the exercise. “The Delhi Metro receives more than 26 lakh passengers everyday and a substantial number of them are women. We believe that their women personnel need to respond effectively in close quarters, usually in a crowded area of the Metro or during the late hours of the night for the protection of women passengers and themselves,” the official said. Within the coming seven weeks, CISF plans to train more of its women personnel engaged in Metro and airport security in this combat form.