Delhi Police's dog squad to get more canines ahead of CWG

The Delhi Police is strengthening its canine squad to meet the security challenges thrown out by the 2010 Commonwealth Games by increasing its number to over 100 before the sporting extravaganza.

The city police is planning to buy 75 more pups for the squad in the coming months which would help the force to increase the number of canines in the squad to over 100 from existing 47 ahead of the 2010 Games.

The pups which would be bought will be in the age group of two to six months and it would take at least an year to train them, a senior police official said.

The increase in the number would ease the pressure on the existing "overworked" squad which has attended to 12,429 calls last year, which included 709 tracking calls and 11,009 explosives calls besides performing anti-sabotage checks during several VVIP functions and visits.

The move to strengthen the squad comes in the backdrop of the 2010 Games, increased workload due to addition of new police districts and terrorist threat perception.

"There is a lot of pressure on the squad. We have just 47 canines in the squad now and some of them will retire soon. We need more canines in the squad to meet the challenges. So we are buying more," the official said, adding "before the Games, we plan to have 104 dogs in the squad."