{"id":11645,"date":"2013-06-25T12:07:41","date_gmt":"2013-06-25T06:37:41","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/news.entecity.com\/?p=11645"},"modified":"2013-06-25T12:07:41","modified_gmt":"2013-06-25T06:37:41","slug":"keralas-commando-thunderbolts-gets-new-urban-assault-vehicles","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/keralas-commando-thunderbolts-gets-new-urban-assault-vehicles\/","title":{"rendered":"Kerala\u2019s commando Thunderbolts gets new urban assault vehicles"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><strong>Thunderbolts<\/strong>&#8211; the commando force of Kerala Police, are now equipped with new urban assault vehicles. The Police commandos have been provided with<strong> Tata Winger and Mahindra Xylo<\/strong> multi-utility vehicle to deploy for combat in tension affected areas.<\/p>\n<p>The unit consist of eight members. The first four out of the vehicle will take positions to provide cover fire while the other four will \u2018strike out\u2019 and move fast to target. The drivers of the assault vehicles are commandos trained to extricate VIP convoys from various kinds of ambushes. The vehicle is equipped with GPS and can be used as forward command and communications posts in the event of a terrorist attack.<\/p>\n<p>The vehicle also houses unit\u2019s weapons, ammunition, and tactical gears, including breaching tools, night-vision equipment and scopes, sniper rifles, grenades, bulletproof and fire-retardant tactical vests, helmets, water, first aid kits, and dry rations. There is also a provision to attach light machine guns on rooftop. The Home Department hopes that, urban assault vehicle will enable the &#8216;Thunderbolts&#8217; to navigate through unfriendly terrain very fast.<\/p>\n<p>Thunderbolts is part of the <strong>India Reserve Battalion<\/strong> setup in accordance with Central Government&#8217;s directive after the Mumbai Terror Strike. Currently, there are 160 commandos in the force. \u00a0Ever since Mumbai terror attack, the Thunderbolts have been in a constant mode of training and deployment. The commandos have to finish a 5-km cross-country run in 24 minutes, at least three times a week. Each commando carries 10 kg of equipment, including their assault rifle and sidearm, during the run. They constantly undergo practise on their Austrian Glock 17 semi-automatic, 9-mm pistols and German-made Heckler and Koch sub-machine guns to improve the speed of their draw and accuracy.<\/p>\n<p>Home Minister Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan commissioned the vehicles at <strong>Police Headquarters in Trivandrum<\/strong>. State Police Chief K.S. Balasubramanian and other senior officers were present at the function.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Thunderbolts&#8211; the commando force of Kerala Police, are now equipped with new urban assault vehicles. The Police commandos have been provided with Tata Winger and Mahindra Xylo multi-utility vehicle to deploy for combat in tension affected areas. The unit consist of eight members. The first four out of the vehicle will take positions to provide [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":44,"featured_media":11646,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,4],"tags":[136],"class_list":["post-11645","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-city-news","category-general","tag-kerala-police"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11645"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/44"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11645"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11645\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11646"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11645"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11645"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/entecity.com\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11645"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}