After abolishing own dog squad,Manipur Police rely on Army
Source: Hueiyen News Service

Imphal, July 08 2013: While Manipur Police is getting obsessed with acquiring sophisticated guns and vehicles under the multi-crore Police Modernization Plan, equipments necessary for investigation in crimes have not been maintained by the Police Department.

Most surprisingly, the Dog Squad of the Police Department has been abolished and the State Police are depending on the Army and Paramilitary forces whenever there is need for sniffer dogs.

The sniffer dogs are one of the assets of modern police department and they are used in checking explosives and other items in crime scenes.

However, the State Police do not have even such basic requirement for investigation.

The Police have to rely on sniffer dogs of Army or Assam Rifles whenever they find some objects suspected to be explosives.

Moreover, they hire these dogs from the Military at the time of high profile visit of national leaders in the State.

After abolishing own dog squad,Manipur Police rely on Army

The requisition of sniffer dogs from the Army also takes about one hour.

It is indeed difficult for bomb experts to trace the explosive devices without the use of these sniffer dogs.

It may be mentioned that one Assam Rifle personnel got killed while inspecting a suspicious explosive device at Heirok some months back.

Way back in 1987, the then IGP L Jugeshwar (former DGP of Manipur) set up the Dog Squad of Manipur Police by recruiting eight constables.

According to a highly placed official source, the eight constables of Dog Squad were trained at BSF Academy at Tikanpur in Madhya Pradesh for nearly 18 months in dog handling.

Moreover, four German Shepherds costing Rs.5000 each were also purchased from the Academy and inducted them into the training along with the constables.

The German Shepherds were given special training as tracker dogs.

Later, they were brought to Imphal and the first Dog Squad of Manipur Police was thus set up.

The eight constables who were trained in dog handling were Konsam Nandakishore, N Bishwaraj, O Mangi, I Ranjit, L Jateshwar, Kh Gege, Md Iboyaima and M Modhu.

Two constables among them have retired from the service while six others are still serving in the Department.

The eight constables were trained in handling tracker dogs, explosive dogs, narcotic dogs and anti-smuggler dogs.

However, the four dogs of Manipur Police had lived only for five years due to sheer negligence of the higher authorities.

Fund for their food was not even released leading to unceremonious death of all four dogs of Manipur Police Dog Squad.

Six more personnel of 1st Battalion Manipur Rifles were also trained in dog handling at the BSF Academy and brought back four dogs.

Unfortunately, all dogs had short lives.

The Dog Squad of Manipur Police eventually came to an end somewhere in the year 2003-04.The trained dogs could not maintain their next generation as the authorities of Manipur Police had not given permission for cross-breeding with other dogs.

The official source further said that it is really disappointing for the Police Department not to have even a Dog Squad which is very essential in the context of increasing number of crimes in the State.