ITBP canines serving in Afghanistan airlifted to India

According to an ITBP official, the K-9s, Maya, Bobby and Roobi, had spent their time on foreign assignment to secure the Indian Embassy in Kabul amidst a high threat perception and they had helped detect several IEDs.

New Delhi:Indo-Tibetan Border Police’s sniffer dogs— Roobi, Maya and Bobby that were deployed for security at Indian Embassy in Afghanistan's Kabul on Tuesday returned to India as part of the evacuations from the war-torn country. The canines which returned to India on board a IAF C-17 Globemaster aircraft from Kabul are now awaiting for their redeployment in India.

According to an ITBP official, the K-9s, Maya, Bobby and Roobi, had spent their time on foreign assignment to secure the Indian Embassy in Kabul amidst a high threat perception and they had helped detect several IEDs.

“The Afghanistan-returned K9s protected lives of not only the Indian diplomats but also local Afghan civilians working in the embassy,” he added.

DIG (Vet) Sudhakar Natarajan, ITBP said: "We are proud of Maya, Roobi and Bobby's work in Afghanistan. They worked with the troops of the ITBP K9 wing, who have worked with zero errors to sniff terror and secure Indian assets in Kabul, during their deployment."

The 99 ITBP commandos and the three sniffer dogs were among the nearly 200 diplomats, including Indian ambassador to Afghanistan Rudrendra Tandon was among the personnel who returned to India on Tuesday.

An official said that the dogs are presently at the ITBP’S camp at Chawala in New Delhi and they would be redeployed as per the requirements. Roobi, Maya and Bobby are around 5 to 7 years old and they were trained at ITBP’s National Training Centre for Dogs (NTCD) at Panchkula district in Haryana, he added.

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).