As the present strength of 60 dogs in the Delhi Police dog squad is stretched to its limit, Delhi Police is planning to induct 100 more canines to augment its fleet. Currently the dog squad has 15 tracker dogs and 45 explosive detector dogs, for all the districts in Delhi.
“A proposal has been sent to the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to induct 100 dogs of different breeds. We hope to get 20 puppies by the next month so that they could be sent to Border Security Force’s dog training centre at Tekanpur”, said Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rajan Bhagat.
“Apart from visiting crime scenes, tracking suspects, detecting explosives, conducting routine checks in railways, airplanes, metros, shopping malls, Government buildings, public places and more, the dog squad also has to sanitise VIP routes and guard high-risk events”, Bhagat added.
According to a senior police official in charge of the dog squad housed in Model Town police station, “We currently have 20 dogs in this facility, all Labradors. We are hoping to engage 20 more dogs of different breeds in our team. We work around the clock, sometimes in a single day we get called for duty over ten times, some days we do just one-two routine checking. It depends on day to day basis, but we can definitely feel the shortage.”
“With two dogs in the facility having earned medals for Delhi Police in the All India Police Duty Meet, the dogs in the squad are highly trained and efficient. Babu, a four-year-old Labrador won gold in tracking while his sister Babe won silver in explosive detection”, Bhagat said.
However, a handler in the dog squad disclosed that it gets tough for the dogs when they have to work multiple hours. “After 2-3 hours the dogs get exhausted, and it is especially hard on tracker dogs, since they have no set area and might have to walk for miles and multiple hours to trace a specific scent. Due to high pollution levels in Delhi, there is a risk for our dogs to become vulnerable to lung diseases.”
“For dogs trained to detect explosives, it is usually limited to an area, a building, or a specific vehicle, airplane, metro etc.
Therefore they relatively exert themselves less compared to the tracker dogs, nevertheless after completing a job, we have to sent them back to rest and another set of dogs is sent for duty,” the handler said.
On acquiring a new batch of puppies, police officials say that the dogs in Delhi Police Dog Squad are first trained by BSF for 6 months; they get separate trainings for tracker dogs and to detect explosives. The dogs are then handed to Delhi Police Dog Squad under crime branch, where they work till they reach retirement age, which depending on the dog is between eight-ten years.
“When these canines are not on duty, the dogs have two practice sessions, one in the morning and one in the evening. They are fed a balanced diet of protein (meat and milk) and carbohydrates (rice, dalia and wheat), two times a day. After lunch they are given rest before resuming their duties, he said.
