LAHORE: Four senior officers of the Turkish National Police have joined two-month specialized training as instructors of the first batch of 468 corporals recruited by the Punjab Counter-Terrorism Department as a part of new Anti-Terrorism Force.

They will be joined by an Turkish team on Dec 7 to conduct longest-ever training session of corporals at Elite Police Training School, Baidian Lahore.

As many as 1,271 corporals including 75 females have so been inducted in the CTD on a high pay package and incentives.

Officials told Dawn on Thursday that a group of 42 Turkish police experts of different ranks would impart training to 930 corporals of first two batches from Dec 1, 2014, to March 31, 2015, in two phases.

They said the training would be imparted in the fields of investigation, intelligence and special operations by experts who would use their own state-of-the-art academic courses and physical and tactical training modules.

Officials said Punjab police experts, including Elite instructors, would also assist Turkish instructors during two training sessions.

They said first batch of 468 corporals started their general training, including Elite Police course, from April 2014 while second batch of 462 corporals joined the training in June this year.

Officials said the first batch would be passed-out on January 31, 2015 and the second batch would complete two-month specialized training on March 31, 2015.

They further said third batch of 341 corporals, who had joined general training phase from Dec 1, would be getting Turkish training at a later stage.

According to the CTD record, the basic qualification for corporals was graduation, but a good number of them are master degree holders, vets, engineers and MBAs.

Published in Dawn, December 6th, 2014