Tinsukia, April 10: The Assam government is imparting specialised training to the state's 19,881 village defence parties (VDP) in order to get them ready to tackle modern threats and challenges.

Training of a batch of 87 VDPs from Upper Assam ended today at the headquarters of the 2nd APBN at Makum, around 10km from Tinsukia town. This was the second batch of VDPs to receive the new training. The first batch was trained in Kamrup (rural) district in January. The Tinsukia batch had VDP personnel from across 10 police districts - Sadiya, Tinsukia, Dibrugarh, Sivasagar, Chariadeo, Jorhat, Majuli, Golaghat, Dhemaji and Bishwanath Charali.

Earlier, VDP personnel would be trained about basic firefighting and the Assam Village Defence Organisation Act, 1966. Now, they are being taught to tackle a host of challenges.

"They were trained in 11 fields, including handling cases relating to explosives, narcotics, human trafficking, wildlife, child labour, industrial security, disaster management and unarmed combat to name a few. The training focuses on imparting basic policing knowledge and will also instil discipline in them besides making them familiar with the law," said Mugdha Jyoti Mahanta, the superintendent of police of Tinsukia district.

"The training of VDPs becomes important because they form the first line of defence in villages and the interiors, which are far away from police (stations), during critical law and order situations and natural disasters," Mahanta said.

"In times of increasing terror threat and crime graph, a robust and skilled VDP has become a necessity," the police superintendent said, adding: "The objective of such training is to convert raw VDP personnel into skilled VDP personnel, without which such a force is not of much use."

Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal had recently emphasised the need to ma-ke the VDP force more robust.

Deputy superintendent of police (headquarters), Suprotive Lal Baruah, who was closely associated with the training programme in Tinsukia, told The Telegraph that this is just the beginning towards creating a more efficient VDP force.

Baruah said experts from CISF imparted training on industrial security, professor Rajib Rudra Tariang from Digboi college - a wildlife expert - gave training on wildlife, excise officials gave lessons on narcotics, district child protection officer Rizwana taught them about child labour. "The officers from the battalion imparted training on explosives while I was focusing on law and other matters," he said.

Similar training programmes will be carried out in other parts of the state soon, he said.Baruah said, at times, the VDP personnel need to physically engage with criminals. "It is this unarmed combat training with self-defence techniques that will be helpful to them in controlling the situation till the police arrive."

The valedictory function was presided over by the commandant of 2nd APBN, Amitabh Das, in the presence of other senior officers.