The Police Commission has approved a proposal to upgrade the Crime Suppression Division commando unit to be responsible for ensuring security for His Majesty the King and members of the royal family, a source says.
When obtaining its division status, the commando unit will report directly to the Central Investigation Bureau (CIB), the source said, adding that the proposal is expected to be forwarded to the cabinet for approval in one or two weeks.
Technically, the commando unit's future division status is a division quota left vacant since the tourist police division was upgraded to be the Tourist Police Bureau.
The royal guard and special operations division is likely to be the new name of the commando unit when upgraded, while the headquarters of the new division will in the beginning still be at the same location as the commando unit's current office on Soi Chok Chai 4. The headquarters of the new division will later be relocated to a new location in Muang Thuang Thani in Nonthaburi when the new office is completely built -- the construction of the Muang Thong Thani office was almost complete.
As for the organisational structure of the new police division, the commissioner of the division will be a police major general, while his 10 deputies will be police colonels who will head the 10 sub-divisions.
There will also be 20 deputy sub-division chiefs, 42 division inspectors and more than 100 deputy division inspectors.
The new division's sub-division 1-6 will take care of the same areas the CSD currently does, while the sub-division 7 will be responsible for anti-terrorism work.
The sub-division 8 will be responsible mainly for directing police cars designated to be used in radio communication in an operation to provide security services for His Majesty the King and all other royal family members.
The sub-division 9 will be responsible for caring of all police equipment and special equipment of the division, while the sub-division 10 will serve as the administration office of the new division.
Altogether, the new division will have about 1,200 personnel, a number of who will be transferred from the Border Patrol Police Bureau and more from the recruitment of newly graduated police lance corporals.
To ensure the new division always has fresh police forces, the division will recruit new personnel every two years to replace those current personnel who will have to be transferred to work at the police stations.
Ideal personnel are those with military-like personalities, good discipline and being quick learners.
Aside from its main duty of ensuring security for His Majesty the King and all other royal family members, the new division will also serve as a SWAT (special weapons and tactics) unit similar to the SWAT unit of the US Federal Bureau of Investigation.
Those newly graduated police lance corporals who will win the recruitment into the new division is required to already have undergone skydiving and special warfare training from the Naresuan military camp.
The successful applicants will later be sent to the same camp for further training code named Naresuan 261 course, an anti-terrorism training course which normally receives only 30 participants per year.