According to the local police, till 7 am, two were dead and fifty-one others were reported to be missing and rescue efforts are underway.

The search operation was conducted jointly with the state police in a forested area of Jobhi Khutwar axis in Hazaribagh district.

Aaranyak, one of India's prominent biodiversity conservation organisations, on Tuesday, mourned the passing away of its first k9 unit member, Zorba.

New Delhi Feb 28 PTI India will soon have a national narco canine pool with 70 dogs of various breeds being trained by experts to sniff out drugs in various operational scenarios officials saidThe pool of narcotics detection dogs NDDs will be raised in collaboration with the K9 canine cell of the Union home ministry Narcotics Control Bureau NCB and counter-terrorist force National Security Guard NSGThe plan was first mooted during a review conducted by Union Home Minister Amit Shah in December last year on the overall narcotics drug abuse and trafficking scenario in the countryThe national narco canine pool will initially start with raising a unit of about 70 dogs that will be posted with the NCB across its various field units in the country an official involved in the exercise told PTIThis plan also aims to train NDDs and narcotics detection dog teams for various state government agencies and counter-narcotics units as per requirement he saidThis will be the first time that India will have a national pool of narcotics detection dogs who can be deployed for sniffing out contraband that come in large shipments at sea ports airports and cross-border land stations and even large trucks and vehicles plying cross-country a second officer saidThe second officer added that the narcotics canines will be drawn from various local and foreign breeds and they will be essentially deployed to test drugs like marijuana cocaine heroin methamphetamine MDMA and ecstacy among othersDogs at present are used in a very limited capacity in detecting concealed narcotics Various agencies have different standards Some even do not have a standard operating procedure for deploying dogs for drug dutiesSo the national narco canine pool is aimed to coordinate and address the vacuum here by sharing technology and raising dogs for states and federal agencies from the training institutions of central paramilitary forces and the NSG the first officer saidThe NCB the federal anti-narcotics agency plans to depute at least two such trained dogs at each of its over 30 zonal and sub-zonal offices he said PTI NES IJT

Greater Noida (Uttar Pradesh) [India], October 22 (ANI): Indo-Tibetan Border Police (ITBP) Director General Sanjay Arora on Friday awarded special medals to its best dog and horse for having a commendable service.