Dog squads on guard duty for African leaders

Labradors, German Shepherds and Belgian Malinois...the Indo-Tibetan Border Police's (ITBP) feared dog squad will be assisting over 25,000 security personnel here in guarding the visiting African leaders.

K9, as the squad is known, will be securing the VVIP areas where representatives of 54 African nations would be participating in the four-day India Africa Forum Summit, which will commence here on Monday.

"The dog squad will conduct anti-sabotage and other security checks of areas which will be frequented by the heads of state and other delegates of the India-Africa summit," a police official told IANS.

Besides 20 trained canines of the Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP), there will be dog squads drawn from other security agencies, the official said.

The ITBP has been nominated as the national "centre for excellence" for sniffer and police dogs' training.

The border guarding forces' canine squad was deployed for events like the swearing-in ceremony of Prime Minister Narendra Modi last year, US President Barack Obama's visit in January, and for the International Yoga Day event at Rajpath on June 21.