CHANDIGARH: In a first for the country, the Punjab Prisons Department has bought four specially-trained dogs to crack down on possession of mobile phones by prisoners in the state’s jails. These canines are trained to focus on the smell of the batteries of mobile phones which means any prisoner carrying one, would be hard-pressed to successfully hide it.
According to authorities, officials from other states are now looking to induct such specially-trained canines in their prisons as well. Dogs capable of sniffing out mobile phones are currently in service in the US, the UK, Germany and France. In Punjab, the four dogs, each worth `2.25 lakh, have been deployed in Sangrur, Gurdaspur, Ropar and Hoshiarpur jails. They are in addition to the eight dogs already pressed into service for detecting narcotics.
Over 1,500 mobile phones were recovered by authorities in 2017 and between 2014 and 2016, 1,543 phones were recovered. Overall, 5,000 mobile phones have been recovered in the 26 jails of the state over the past five years. Talking to The Sunday Standard, Newton Sidhu, Director of the Punjab Home Guards Canine Training and Breeding Institute, said, “We have given four dogs to the Punjab Jails department which can detect mobile phones. At present, such dogs have not been deployed anywhere else in the country. These dogs become a deterrent in the jails as they cannot be bribed. Now, authorities of the Tihar Jail and Maharashtra Prisons Department have contacted us for buying such dogs.”
Sidhu added that their training method was developed in the US. “Our training methodology is a food reward program which was developed by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms in the US. Under this programme, the dog is given his food only when it finds something (article). Dogs can easily smell narcotics and arms and that training takes seven weeks but to train them to locate mobile phones is a bit difficult. These dogs are trained for four hours every day for a period of twelve weeks,” he added.
“The battery of the mobile has a peculiar smell even if the mobile and battery are separated. The mobile phone itself is hard to smell as it is an object and compressed. Also, there is a different smell on the body of the cell phone as the traces of the battery are left in it. These dogs, all Labradors imported from the UK, are trained to focus on smell.”
The institute has a repertoire of high-profile clients looking for trained canines. “Recently, we sent a trained Labrador in the security cover for Dalai Lama and the Ministry of External Affairs has placed an order for four dogs which can detect explosives. The CRPF and the Assam Rifles are buying Belgian Malinois dogs from us as they can work for eight hours in a day and are experts in explosives and mine detection. The Punjab Police has bought 32 dogs from us, all Labradors trained in detecting narcotics,” he added.