1st-ever school of explosives handling established

PESHAWAR: After losing over a dozen bomb disposal experts and witnessing thousands of blasts in the past decade, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has finally got the first-ever School of Explosives Handling in the country to provide specialised training to the cops for defusing explosives.
The school has been established at the Nowshera Police Lines on the banks of river Kabul adjacent to the fine-looking police rest house. The building was an old police establishment. It was turned it into a proper school by spending Rs3 million.
“The school will have specialised courses and training for the experts and personnel of the bomb disposal unit (BDU) to improve their skills to defuse any kind of explosives while taking care of their lives,” Inspector General of Police (IGP) Nasir Khan Durrani told The News.
He added that proper courses would be taught at the school headed by a director. “Short courses will be conducted for the policemen from all over Khyber Pakhtunkhwa so that they could learn to defuse explosives. They will be taught what to do if an ordinary cop cannot defuse a bomb,” the IGP explained.
The modalities are being finalised for getting the school affiliated with the Ghulam Ishaq Khan Institute of Engineering Sciences and Technology, Swabi. The school will offer different orientation and specialised courses that include bomb disposal course, explosives detection course, blast scene investigation and explosive handling and detection orientation course.
“The Police School of Explosive Handling has been established by the KP Police from its own resources by converting a dilapidated building into an impressive structure,” said District Police Officer (DPO), Nowshera Rabnawaz Khan.
The school is the first of its kind in the country. Such an institution should have been set up long ago when the province used to witnesses bombings in most of its districts on a daily basis.
Improvised explosive devices (IEDs), suicide jackets, grenades, rockets, mortar shells and various kinds of explosive powder have been displayed at the laboratory of the school to properly teach the BDU personnel and other policemen the nature and impact of these things and the skills to get these defused.
Various gadgets, including protective kits, robots and modern cutters, have been displayed at the school to familiarize the trainees. “The establishment of the Police School of Explosives Handling was a necessity as the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police, being the frontline police in the war against terrorism, has suffered heavy casualties over the last one decade,” added IGP Nasir Khan Durrani.
Khyber Pakhtunkhwa lost 15 bomb disposal experts who were killed while defusing bombs. They either mishandled the explosives or were attacked with another IED after they successfully defused a bomb.
The last such attack took place in the limits of Badaber Police Station a couple of years back in which top BDU expert Abdul Haq and three of his deputies were killed when they rushed to defuse an IED.
Abdul Haq together with another martyred BDU expert Hukam Khan defused more than 3000 bombs in the last few years. According to an official, the experts of the BDU of the KP Police had defused more than 6,000 IEDs, suicide jackets and other bombs since 2008. Many thousand went off killing thousands of civilians and law-enforcers.
“The present strength of BDU is approximately 500. The BDU has been equipped with modern explosive detection and disposal equipment. This school has been established to provide the requisite specialised training to the BDU,” maintained the KP Police chief.