Mumbai:Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis here today inaugurated the building of Maharashtra’s anti-terror unit ‘Force One’ which houses a training centre and hostel for the state commandos.

Built at a budget of Rs 85 crore by Maharashtra Police Welfare and Housing Corporation, the structure has a specialised training institute for commandos besides a hostel facility for 140 personnel, and a 100 metre long firing range.

Speaking on the occasion, Fadnavis said ‘Force One’, an elite commando force was set up on the lines of National Security Guards (NSG).

“Its a matter of great pride and happiness that Maharashtra has extremely good and professional units like Force One,” he said.

Appreciating the commandos, who displayed their rappelling skills during the inaugural ceremony, CM said, “In movies you do it after repeated takes, with protection of all kinds and editing, but to do rappelling better than them in real life on such a huge building, so smoothly, it is extremely courageous.

“Such good and sophisticated training has been given here,” he said.

“I am sure, as long as we have a force like this, we have the strength to tackle any enemy,” he added.

Also present were minister Ravindra Waikar, Maharashtra DGP Satish Mathur, Mumbai Police Commissioner Datta Padsalgikar and other senior police officials.

The ‘Force One’ was formed to reduce the response time in case of a terror attack here as it took nine hours for the NSG to fly to Mumbai to take charge of the troubled sites during the dastardly 26/11 terror attacks in the city, which left 166 people dead and over 300 injured.

In the government resolution pertaining to ‘Force One’ formulation, it was specified this force should be used only for fighting terrorism in the state and not for any other activities, unlike NSG which is also being used for the security of VIPs and politicians.

PTI