Maruti Suzuki executives at Manesar given lesson in self-defensive martial arts

Maruti Suzuki India Limited, the country's largest passenger car maker, has devised an unconventional scheme to ward off the ghosts of the unfortunate Manesar incident from the minds of its executives.

The company has hired the services of a martial arts trainer, who has been given the task of training the MSIL officials in basic combat and self-defensive techniques. Some senior officials of the company have affirmed that the executives of MSIL's production units at Manesar and Gurgaon will be given lessons on the science of handling violent situations and basic self-defence skills.

Maruti Suzuki India has not yet fully recovered from the horrors of deadly Manesar incident, which resulted in a casualty of a senior HR executive and left over hundred staff members injured. The deadly riot resulted in a month long shut-down of the plant from July 18, 2012 and costed the company millions in revenues and production loss. MSIL's export business was also immensely affected by the incident.

Reportedly, the company hired Anuj Sharma, a Chief Instructor at Invictus Survival Sciences, who was handed the task to teach basic combating techniques to the executives. Sharma supervised the first round of a four-hour training in self-defence for 30 MSIL officials at the company's Gurgaon facility. Speaking his mind about the combat styles employed in the training, Sharma said, “Our methods are a mix of (martial art forms) krav maga, kaap, systema, defendo, ground fighting and grappling techniques.”

MSIL has also convened the services of professional psychologists to help its executives in surmounting their fears arising from the appalling memories. According to Economic Times, Dr. Rachna Singh, counsellor at Artemis Hospital, Gurgaon was roped in by MSIL to facilitate the psychotherapy sessions of its employees.

Expressing her views on violence affected MSIL employees, Singh said, “This was the first time I was seeing so many people with a similar stress-related issue. The violence left a lot of scars in them and their experience was very grave.” She also affirmed that many of the participants of psychotherapy sessions were advised to take part in the next session as well.

Reportedly, MSIL is working hard to remove the memories of Manesar riot from the conscience of its executives and has employed therapy sessions for those who eye-witnessed the ugly violence. A Maruti official said, “First, physical injuries were attended to. And then the mental anxieties of executives were a cause for concern for us. It is an issue that needed the right amount of attention.”