The State’s Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has launched a nationwide hunt to get 20 pups in order to give new lease of life to the Dog Squad, which plays a crucial role in probing complex cases.

The process has been started by inviting nationwide tenders from the interested parties for the pups registered with ‘Kennel Club of India.’ Presently, the Squad is undergoing acute shortage of dogs hampering the investigation process of the CID.

“Presently, application for 20 male pups, 10 each of labrador and German shepherd has been invited in the first phase,” said ADG (CID) SN Pradhan. In order to get quality response, nationwide applications have been invited from the interested ones, he added. According to Pradhan, the squad here is already in shortage and a bigger contingent is required to carry out investigation process in the State. Pups of 3-6 months are inducted in the squad which is trained for about another 6-12 months by a separate handler for each of them. “Presently, we are having 31 dogs in the squad for the State which is less than half of its requirement,” he added. The last three attempts made by us for the purpose failed as we did not get entries of quality dogs required for the purpose.  Best dogs for the purpose of policing could be obtained only by catching them young and training them afterwards, he added.

The dog squad in Ranchi is also in a pathetic condition, shrinking to less than half of its strength required in the State as most of the dogs have either died in the last 6-7 years and the remaining ones have become so old that they have lost their sniffing power. “We are under intense pressure due to lack of active dogs in the squad as there are very few dogs left for us.

We urgently require at least double the number of dogs that we are presently having with us,” said a handler Arvind Kumar Singh. Singh added, “The squad has been winded up in some of the districts like Chaibasa due to lack of sufficient number of dogs with the department while Jamshedpur is currently having only 2 dogs with it, 2 in Dumka, 3 in Hazaribagh and Palamau having only one dog .

Interestingly, one of the reasons behind decreasing number of dogs in the squad is that they are not allowed for mating, as according to the trainers, they get diverted from their regular training exercise if comes in contact with the opposite sex. Moreover, there is also seen a steep decline in their sniffing power, if they are allowed to mate, he added.

Ranchi range is currently having 5 dogs which are too old to perform - 3 are with the bomb squad, 2 have been deputed to assist investigating of the cases like theft and murder, while another one has broken its leg which is not of our use any more,” he added.

Furthermore, they also need to do regular duty at Governor House, CM house and at State Secretariat. They are also deputed for VIP movements in the Naxal affected areas as well as during Sports Meets in the State, said officer in charge of Dog Squad in Ranchi.