NEW DELHI: Indian Army’s Assault Dog “Zoom” is fighting for its life at a Military veterinary Hospital in Srinagar as terrorists shot it twice. It was operated upon as he had a gunshot wound on face and rear right leg.
But before it was rushed out with the critical wounds it had assisted the joint anti-terror forces in 'neutralizing' two terrorists.
A sensitive intelligence-based operation was launched by the joint team of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, CRPF and Army on Sunday. The surveillance had helped the forces to reach the target house but the number of terrorists was not known. But, with readjustment of the cordon and intermittent exchange of fire throughout the night the forces confirmed presence of two terrorists in the house.
Army on Monday said, “During the period, it was spotted by own technical assets that one of the terrorists was injured. At that time, a brave fighter “Zoom”, an Army assault canine was sent into the target house to retrieve the weapon from terrorists and pull them out of hiding. Zoom approached the target stealthily and pounced upon the terrorist. Zoom was fired upon by the terrorists in hiding, thereby injuring him seriously. However, he was successful in de-stabilising the terrorists, who were then effectively neutralised by the precision fire of the troops.”
Valiant Zoom is presently battling for his life at a Military Veterinary Hospital. Assault dogs are specifically trained to attack terrorists carrying guns in a closed area or open area.
Zoom, a Melanois or Belgian Shepherd was born in September 2020 and joined the Army’s 28 Army Dog Unit (ADU) and has a service of eight months with him.
The Indian Army has a total of 32 Units out of which there are 19 dog Units serving in Northern Command which is responsible for the operation in Ladakh and Jammu and Kashmir. Each canine unit has 24 dogs of different specialties.
Assault dogs are trained to attack terrorists with rifles hiding in rooms or running away after an incident, told Brigadier Devender Kumar of Northern Command.
"The Assault Dogs along with all other such canine soldiers deployed in different roles are proving to be an asset as have been found in the recent operations in Kashmir. The training has brought out positive results and we keep analyzing and improving our training as per the requirements of the force", added Brigadier Devendra
The Army Dogs are trained at the Dog Training Facility based at Remount Veterinary College, Meerut. The dogs are taught obedience and advanced training in specialist tasks like patrolling, guarding, tracking, avalanche rescue operation, and sniff detecting (explosive and mine detection).
The scope of training has recently been expanded to search and rescue ops, crude oil leakage detection and detection of IEDs.