The dog makes its way through the house sniffing for clues.The handler guides it to the cupboard from where items were stolen. Itcontinues searching for clues with an able nose and then heads to the back ofthe house, leading the police to where the burglar escaped over the boundarywall.
Whether it’s in the middle of the night or deep in the heartof Goa, crime detection usually involves a trained canine with a sharp nose andthese tracker dogs are used on every single case that gets reported. Eventhough scientific methods and other technologies are used during the course ofthe investigation, the dog squad is a key element, or so you would think.
“The success rate of the tracker dog is zero per cent,” saidan officer, requesting anonymity. However, the Director General of Police,Kishen Kumar, refuted the claim and said that circumstances of the crime affectthe detection rate.
“If the dog is properly trained and properly conditioned andright inputs are given to the dog, then the success rate can go high,” the DGPsaid. So, are the current dogs properly trained and conditioned? Their trackrecord speaks otherwise.
The dog squad of Goa police is fragmented into two wings,sniffer dog and tracker dog. The sniffer wing has two dogs and the tracker winghas only one, a top official in the dog squad informed, adding that two moredogs that undergoing training.
This means that there is one tracker dog for the whole ofGoa. Judging by the rise in crime rates, one tracker dog is far too little anumber for a state like this.
Sniffer dogs, used to detect explosives and narcotics, have100 percent detection rate, but surprisingly the Goa police has never been ableto book a single case of narcotics through these dogs, sources said. DeputySuperintendent of Police of ANC, Nilu Raut Desai said that he does notrecollect a single case booked in the past by using sniffer dogs. The lowdetection rate of the dog squad has kept police clueless in most of the cases.
