BENGALURU: To tackle the challenges of enemy drones along the international border and areas around vital installations within the country, the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) is training its dog squads to detect and track these flying objects based on variations in sound levels.

Buoyed by the initial success at a few locations on both western and eastern frontiers, the CRPF's Dog Breeding and Training School (DBTS) in Bengaluru is now building on the new capability of its canine force.

TimesviewFrom assisting in therapy to sniffing out security hazards, dogs have donned many furs with much elan and ease.

And now they will be mastering the skills to perk up their ears and spot enemy drones.

A thoroughly trained K9 squad comprising Belgian Shepherd Malinoises can help avert aerial infiltration in hostile terrain and effectively assist frontline soldiers guarding our borders.

Recently, Romeo and Julie from the NDRF’s dog squad were hailed for helping trace a child from under tonnes of debris in earthquake-torn Gaziantep city of Turkiye.

This just goes to show how canine company in any form can be truly life-saving.CRPF director-general Sujoy Lal Thaosen who witnessed multiple demonstrations by DBTS' K9 team, largely comprising the first batch of 100-plus Belgian Shepherd Malinois (BSM), in Bengaluru on Thursday, told TOI that soon they will have a canine squad capable of detecting all types of drones.

The K9 team showcased their agility and combat preparedness during a two-day national seminar on Police K9 squad."Our initial experiment has yielded positive results and we are fine-tuning some of the shortcomings in enabling dogs to detect drones from long distances.

Drones come with varying levels of sound - small, medium and heavy operation ones.

The dogs will be trained in sensing variation in drones' sound and pass on the message to the handler or unit," he explained.Difficult to detect flying objects, says CRPF DGThoasen said parts of eastern and western frontiers are inhospitable due to not just steep valleys and dense jungles, but also because of anti-social elements and terror sleeper cells who have been found using drones around vital installations inside the country.

"There is always a threat of drones making inroads from these points and it is difficult to detect these flying objects along these terrains.

But the dogs are capable of spotting drones and this has been demonstrated efficiently," he maintained.He also explained that the CRPF's prolonged search for the best dog breed - to aid and assist the jawans in anti-insurgency operations across Jammu and Kashmir and jungle warfare in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) areas and other roles - has, for the time being, ended with the BSM breed.

"Even though I am not an authority on dog breeds, my field officers have given us positive feedback on this breed."Puppies imported when they were 45 days oldAs many as 100 BSM puppies were imported when they were 45 days old and later put to rigorous training after they crossed the 90-day mark.

Sources in CRPF revealed that annually, 65% of the fatalities among CRPF jawans either in LWE areas or in anti-insurgency operations are due to IED blasts.

"These dogs will henceforth be the eyes and ears of the patrolling teams sniffing out IEDs and other explosives.

We are also thinking of replacing our sentries with a certain number of these trained dogs.

If there are 100 jawans patrolling a 1-km area, at least 40 of them can be replaced with dogs and the man can be assigned other tasks for better and optimum utilisation of existing manpower," Thosen explained.

Besides, the dogs are also expected to assist CRPF in detection of tunnels along the border (used for smuggling narcotics and other contraband substances) along with management of hostile crowds during protests and riots and interception of vehicles at checkposts.