Textile and diamond industry to be protected by dog squads

Surat, Aug 12 (UNI) Looking at the recent trend of terrorists attacking economic centres, private security agencies working at Textile and Diamond industries and markets in the city have decided to go in for dog squads and metal detectors.

The textile market association decided to keep dog squads but in a different way. ''We have decided to purchase dogs and have proposed DCP Chandrashekar to provide training to these dogs. If we are able to prepare a team of six dog squads then we can easily provide security to 140 textile markets in the city. Besides the squad prepared can be used by police department also,'' Devkishan Mangani, President of New Textile Market, said. The committee members have decided to pay the training fees incurred for coaching the dogs, he said.

Mitesh Jariwala, owner of Pet Station and Pinkle Kennels, said that trainee dogs are on high demand after recent bomb explosions in the state. He said that about 35 trained dogs have been provided to Gujarat Police for tracking any crime.

Chairman of Guard-Well B K Bhatt said that to protect the economic centres from terrorism, dog squad is very much needed and is the only option for perfect safety. We also want to introduce a bomb defusal squad having Ex-members of Bomb Defusal Squad to tighten the knots. However, he said that it is only possible if market associations provide hike in rates for security agencies.

Pushkar Adhikari, Chairman of Hawk Security, said that currently, the security work is carried out by untrained security personnel in the city, who are not capable of handling terrorist attacks and so dog squads are necessary. He feels that police department, textile and diamond owners and other organizations should hold a seminar for a joint fight with terrorism.

At present, about four-five security agencies have dog squads but the number of dogs is limited. To become more effective, most of the security agencies are purchasing dogs and that too of specific breeds like Labrador, German Schaefer and Doberman. These dog breeds are being trained by the agencies themselves, who are planning to introduce dog squads at major places where threat perception is strong.

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