By Sara Janahi, Staff Reporter www.gulfnews.com
Dubai: Police organised the first training drill to rescue hostages on Dubai Metro as an initiative to provide all precautionary measures to protect Metro commuters.
The drill was for a hostage rescue in dangerous situations such as hijacking. It was conducted in collaboration with United Kingdom’s Metropolitan Police Services and the Roads and Transport Authority (RTA).
“We don’t wish for such a situation to occur but that doesn’t stop us from training our officers in order to protect commuters from such situations that will need immediate police intervention.
“We try to train our units to deal with all sorts of scenarios in order to efficiently deal with certain dangerous situations,” Major General Khamis Mattar Al Mazeina, Deputy Dubai Police Chief, said.
The training which was concluded on Thursday trained police officers to break into Dubai Metro cars and rescue hostages safely. The training took place in Al Rashidiya Metro station.
Repeated regularly
“Such training will be repeated regularly but the circumstances must be provided such as availability of trainers and conducting the training without interfering with the Metro schedules,” said Maj Gen Al Mazeina.
Lieutenant Colonel Abdullah Al Merri, Director of Protection Security and Emergency Department said that the training was parallel to the recent opening of Metro stations.
