SOURCE: Hindustan Times
Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) got 17 new warriors for its K9 team as mothers Olga and Oleshya gave birth to 17 Malinois pups at the ITBP’s elite National Training Centre for Dogs (NTCD) at Bhanu in Panchkula, Haryana.
Both mothers belong to the Malinois breed, which was used by the United States in the operation to eliminate dreaded terrorist Osama Bin Laden. Both warriors of ITBP are counter-insurgency grid veterans and are enjoying motherhood at ITBP K9 Breeding Centre.
“Olga and Oleshya are both sisters – both are 5 years old and the father too is a serving dog named Gala. Both sisters and the father have tenure in Left Wing Extremism (LWE) hit Chhattisgarh where ITBP is deployed,” the ITBP said.
“Olga has given birth to 9 pups, while Oleshya to 8 pups. The pups were born on September 30, and October 4, respectively to the two sisters,” it added.
The ITBP official claimed that Oleshya and Olga have a track record of safeguarding the ITBP troops by sanitising Road Opening Party (ROPs) and acting as a deterrent to ambushes. Both have detected IEDs several times in their career, thereby saving numerous lives in various operations.
Gala- the father of the sister dogs is a tough dog who also loyally escorted the ADP troops and never failed. Gala also took part in the anti-sabotage duty at Atal Tunnel inaugurated by Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently.
According to the Deputy Inspector General (DIG) (Vet) Sudhakar Natarajan, “They are genetically top class pups, from a very robust bloodline imbibing the best genetic vigour from the mothers, who are fearless, agile and with superb olfactory capacity”
The ITBP has received requests from other Central Armed Police Forces (CAPFs) for these pups to be used for their security duties.
ITBP was the first force to deploy Malinois dogs in LWE hit areas a decade ago, and now they have also started scientifically breeding K9s to meet own demands and provide pups to other CAPFs and State Police Forces as mandated by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA).