Tejashwini — the city police’s annual five-day self-defence course for women and girls — will now be held every three months, city police chief Anuj Sharma announced on Wednesday.

More than 200 women and girls completed the course on Wednesday and received certificates from Sharma and the chief guests — BCCI president and former India captain Sourav Ganguly and actress Koel Mallick.

Sharma also inaugurated the city police’s martial arts academy where women and girls will be trained as part of Tejashwini. “We want to reach out to maximum women. Last year, the workshop was organised in May. This year we could not hold it in May. I have asked my officers to organise the camp every three months instead of once a year.”

Last year, 150 women were trained in the first phase of Tejashwini. This year, police had received 600 entries, of which 200 were trained. The rest will be covered in the next phase, according to officers.

The five-day training is a crash course on how to react to “bad touch” on roads or while travelling by public transport or even at home.

“We have tried to teach the girls what their first reaction should be on facing any trouble,” one of the trainers said. “The course teaches them preliminary techniques in self-defence with a mix of street fighting and kick-boxing.”

Women and girls, aged between 12 and 40, many of whom were from the same family, were taught the basics in keeping their bodies fit and simple self-defence moves to counter any sudden attack.

On the closing day, 16 of the participants demonstrated some of the moves in front of senior officers and guests.

Ganguly congratulated the city police for the project and said the need to organise special training for women would reduce if men respected all women.

“Being a man I feel, the most important thing is to respect all women. But, as we know a perfect world does not exist and hence this need to train women in self-defence.”

Koel Mallick stressed the need to remain calm and react without getting scared in case of an attack.