Guwahati, April 11: Assam Police have called upon man’s best friend, the dog, to help them take on militants in the state who are increasingly using explosives as their main strike weapon.

The police have placed orders for 25 Labrador and German Shepherd pups — the two breeds considered best for explosive detection — with Bhogadi Kennels in Andhra Pradesh.

The kennel supplies dogs to all the police departments in the country, to the BSF, the army, the air force, the CISF and the RPF.

Inspector-general of police (criminal investigation department) Dilip Bora today said the police department had nine dogs but felt the need for more in the wake of militant outfits designing new improvised explosive devices to escape the conventional police scanner. Moreover, many dogs have died over the years and the police have not got replacements for them, he added.

The new pups will arrive this month and will be sent for a 24-week course at the National Training Centre for Dogs at Tekanpur in Madhya Pradesh. Here, they will undergo a special training on detecting explosives.

The pups will range from six to nine months — the age considered best for training.

The handlers of the dogs will report at the training centre 21 days before the pups are sent there.

The centre, which functions under the BSF, is a premier institute for training dogs. It also imparts training to dogs from Nepal, Bhutan, Seychelles, Mauritius, Myanmar and Sri Lanka.

Bora said explosive detection dogs, which were so far used only on particular occasions like Independence Day and Republic Day, would be used more often from now on.

He said the police also proposed to use the dogs at main road checkpoints in future.

“We need at least three persons to manage a single dog. It would be a massive exercise to recruit more people now,” he said, explaining why the plan could not be implemented immediately.