Canada officer who trained Mumbai cops, wanted to fulfil his dad's wish

Mumbai: Satyanand Gaitonde, a Close Protection Officer with a security agency in Canada, who has been providing soft skills training to Mumbai police personnel here for the last few months, says he took up this task in order to serve his country, a wish harboured by his late father.

Mumbai-born Gaitonde is presently associated with a national level security agency in Canada. He specialises in soft skills training and imparts counselling besides holding personality development seminars for policemen abroad following which he was roped in by Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Milind Bharambe, to train traffic cops here last year.

"My dad always used to encourage me to do something for the country. I always used to delay it (the decision). He eventually convinced me to come here. But the day I landed here (November 1, 2016) he passed away. That strengthened my determination to work for my country," he told PTI in an informal chat.

Gaitonde, who earlier served with Toronto Police for a decade till 2012, has conducted various soft skills seminars in Mumbai, Navi Mumbai, Thane and Nashik since his arrival in India.

"There is no dearth of trainers in India, but they lack someone to provide soft skill training. Soft skills is a thing that Indian police lacks. So they decided to use my expertise and I started giving lectures on various platforms.

It is first time that Indian police have been given soft skills training. I provide them proper personality development guidance on topics like anger management, stress management, and behavioural issues."

To utilise my skills to the fullest, Milind Bharambe brought me to the Byculla Traffic Training Institute, the 50-year-old officer said.

Following the success of his seminars there, Gaitonde's services were utilised at the Marol Police Training school in suburban Andheri here to train new recruits.

"The Principal of the training school told me that instead of providing training to senior constables and senior officials, if I teach fresh recruits then it will benefit a lot. I took it as a challenge and conducted 16 seminars there, which culminated on Saturday," he said.

During his stint at Marol, Gaitonde trained over 640 new recruits.

He will return to Canada this week.

Gaitonde also penned a book called "Mumbai Traffic Management and Police Officer Safety" after reading about police constable Vilas Shinde, who was allegedly beaten to death by a juvenile biker and his elder brother in Khar here in September last year.

"I was deeply saddened by the death of Shinde. He didn't know the technique for communication or a self-defence skill," he said.

"I have written a book on police officer safety. It is not for publication, but for policemen only. I have given a copy of it to Bharambe and will give one to Maharashtra Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis also."

Speaking about his work in the agency at Canada, he said, "We are a semi-government organisation and an undercover agency. We don't spy or do anything as such. We deal with cyber crime, provide security on spot and support CIA and FBI on security matters."