Bengaluru Police creates first dedicated canine squad for narcotics

BENGALURU: The Police Department is adopting 35 puppies to sniff out narcotics. The young German Shepherds will make up Bengaluru's first canine squad dedicated to detecting banned substances after arrests in narcotics cases nearly doubled to about 120 last year. With the dog squad, police expect that number could more than double by December.

"At present, we do not use dogs to detect drug trafficking. We lay traps by using teenagers to source information and order drugs from peddlers and when (the peddlers) come to deliver, we catch them," said ST Siddallingappa, Assistant Commissioner of Police (Central Crime Branch), who heads the city's narcotics squad.

"If we have a dedicated canine squad to detect narcotic drugs, then we can directly raid places where the drug peddlers are staying."

Bengaluru's Canine Training Centre at the City Armed Reserve ground in Adugodi has 60 dogs. They are deployed 10-11 hours every day in crime detection, VIP security , airport security and bomb detection.

Four of these dogs-- German Shepherds --are experts in sniffing out narcotic drugs as well, said an officer at the training centre. For the anti-narcotics squad, the dogs are sourced from breeders in Bengaluru and Mysuru. Each pup costs Rs 20,000-40,000, according to this officer.

Drug abuse is becoming more rampant in Bengaluru. According to Siddallingappa, drug peddlers mostly operate on the city's outskirts but are becoming active around MG Road, Koramangala and Indiranagar as well. Many of them are residents o f KR Pura , Banaswadi, Kammanahalli and TC Palya and this year, more than 80% of those arrested are foreigners, he said.

"Before it is too late, we want to curb this menace," said Bhaskar Rao, Additional Director General of Police (Karnataka State Reserve Police) who is in charge of the state's canine squad.

With the new anti-narcotics dog squad, Siddallingappa expects that the city police and the Central Crime Branch together can crack at least 300 cases.