Bikaner : Now specially trained foreign breed dogs will also patrol along with the Border Security Force jawans on the 1545 km long international border of Rajasthan and Gujarat. Right now their number will be three to five in the battalion. As the dogs pass out from the only dog training center established in Bikaner, their deployment in border security will increase. The first unit of 16 German Shepherds has completed six months of training from the dog training center at the sector headquarters of BSF. Now they have been deployed on the Gujarat and Rajasthan border. In the second batch, Labradors will also be recruited for training. Their training will start from October 15. The special thing is that this is the first squad of 16 dogs prepared by the BSF. Till now, emphasis has been given on training the dogs to sniff out suspicious objects, especially to search for arms or explosives. Now smuggling of heroin from Pakistan across the border through drones has emerged as the biggest challenge. In such a situation, along with adopting technologies like anti-drones, the help of these trained dogs will be taken in de-coding the network of smugglers.
Search with the help of trained dogs
German Shepherd and now Labrador are also being trained in such a way that they can detect any narcotics lying in the area of five to seven kilometers on the border. These dogs will help BSF in the search. Also, if any local person works as a narcotics carrier, he can be identified with the help of dogs.
Street dogs are also companions of soldiers on the border
About two and a half years ago, the central government had given instructions to train street dogs and use them at border posts on the country’s borders. The then BSF DIG Pushpendra Singh Rathore had also adopted it on the western border of the state. In Bikaner sector alone, more than 200 Indian breed dogs were sent to BSF posts. These dogs still patrol the border with BSF soldiers. Retired Rathore said that no extra money is spent on these dogs. On the instructions of the BSF headquarters, street dogs have been deployed at more than 60 border observation posts.
Heroin is being found in fields and forests
Smugglers from Pakistan are smuggling heroin across the border in the BSF’s Sri Ganganagar and Bikaner centers on the 1037 km border of the state with Pakistan. The smugglers drop packets of heroin in the fields in the Indian border using drones. BSF jawans are deployed 24 hours a day near the zero line, but they only patrol beyond that.
Heroin seized at the border
Year- Heroin
2022 – 24.79 kg
2023 – 48.40 kg
2024 – 15.52 kg
