A stray dog rescued from the streets of Kolkata has become a top dog of the West Bengal police’s bomb and drug-sniffing squad, AFP reported.
Asha was rescued by two policemen from near the Barrackpore campus after they saw her being mistreated, a Times of India report said.
“The dog was bleeding when she was taken inside the campus,” senior West Bengal Police Training Academy official Dipankar Bhattacharya told AFP.
Asha was initially meant to be kept as a pet on campus, but turned out to have a good nose.
After a year-and-a-half of training, Asha has become the first stray dog to join the 30-strong dog squad dominated by German Shepherds and Labradors.
“Asha has broken a glass ceiling of sorts. She is now the only stray to train in an official dog squad. We have been able to prove that street dogs are just as intelligent as any pedigreed dog and can be used as sniffers in detecting explosives and other similar work,” Bhattacharya told ToI.
Asha has been “flawless” in detecting RDX, TNT and gelatine, and detonating fuses, he says, and will soon be formally inducted into the force.