After basketball & cricket, KPSI to set up self-defense academy

Kolkata: After successfully setting up basketball and cricket academies, the Kolkata Police Sergeants' Institute (KPSI) has decided to set up a self-defense Academy.

The decision has come with successful completion of the five-day-long workshop on self-defense for women, Tejashwini, which was organised by KPSI.

The closing programme of the workshop was held on Tuesday and Supratim Sarkar, Joint Commissioner of Police (headquarters), had attended the ceremony.

It may be mentioned that KPSI runs a basketball and a cricket academy. At present there are 93 people who undergo training in the basketball academy, while the number is around 150 in the cricket academy.

Well known basketball players and cricketers provide training in the academy on every weekend. Basketball training at Police Athletic Club's ground takes place in morning, whereas the cricket academy runs in the evening. As per the initial planning, the training on self-defense will be held from 10 am to 2 pm on every Saturday and Sunday and women from 12 to 40 years can undergo the training.

It may be recalled that Kolkata Police had introduced project Sukanya to provide self-defense training to schoolgirls and in the past few years, thousands of girl students have received training under the project. Later, the project was also taken up by Bidhannagar Police Commissionerate, Barrackpore Police Commissionerate and Howrah Police Commissionerate.

The first batch of the training programme in all the police commissionerates has already completed their training and the preparation to initiate the same for the second batch is going on.

It may be recalled that project Sukanya was a brainchild of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee. The academy, that is expected to start from the next month itself, will help women from different walks of life undertake training on self-defense.