18 canines set to join Kolkata Police dog squad

Kolkata: The Kolkata Police has started off with its preparation to add 18 new dogs to its existing squad of 48.

It may be recalled that a proposal was made in September 2011 when the added area came under the jurisdiction of the Kolkata Police to add 30 more dogs in two phases in the squad. The plan was to bring in 12 dogs into the service in the first phase and 18 in the second phase. According to a senior police officer, the 12 dogs were brought into service in mid 2017 and there training programme has completed recently.

"With completion of the training programme of the 12 dogs those were brought into service in the first phase, all necessary work to bring in the next 18 new dogs has started," the officer said adding that committee comprising senior police officers and doctors will be formed to bring in the new members of the dog squad. The committee will take decision on crucial matters including the breed of dogs that will be procured.

Based on the decision of the committee, a detailed proposal will be placed before the state government for further necessary sanctions. There are several issues like construction of kennel and recruitment of constables for the 18 new dogs that need to be carried out before the dogs are brought into the Dog Squad at the Police Training School (PTS) of the Kolkata Police. The officer said two constables need to be recruited for each dog. At present, there are total 48 dogs in the Dog Squad of the Kolkata Police and it includes the 12 newly added ones those are German Shepherd and Labrador. The dogs of different ages between 6 months to 10 months were procured from Hyderabad and sent to Gwalior for training by the Border Security Force (BSF). They dogs underwent the training for around six months and have been brought back to Kolkata.

"But we are yet to engage them in work as they need to get acclimatised to the weather condition here and it would take at least two months, then only they will be pressed for frisking operations as and when required," the officer said. The dogs have been named as Dingo, Piki, Lara, Copper and Topper. Officers of the dog squad had prepared a list containing around 20 names and sent it to senior officers, who had finally chose 12 names out of it. This comes at a time when there will be a separate dog squad for the state secretariat, Nabanna.