The Tribune special: Trained at Attari, canines add bite to Customs fight against drug trade

When India Customs recently announced a major drug bust involving 32 kg ganja at their Kolkata checkpoint, everyone sat up and took notice. That’s because this was one of the top 10 drug hauls by sniffer dogs from India’s first centre dedicated to training dogs in anti-smuggling operations located in Attari village, right next to the India-Pakistan border checkpost.

Nancy and Yasmi, the two sniffer dogs involved in detecting the Kolkata drug haul, are among 34 dogs who have helped confirm or detect narcotics in 82 cases. All are graduates of the Attari Indian Customs K9 (canine) Centre, which was started in February 2020 and specialises in training three breeds — German Shepherds, cocker spaniels and labrador retrievers.

Walk into the centre and you are struck by the extraordinary cleanliness of the large hall in which 24 cages are placed, each of them containing a large dog — there’s no trace of any bad odour. Outside, a large ground spread over five acres or so is divided up into a grassy knoll and a dusty training ground complete with an obstacle course, including several undulating bridges and even a tunnel.

In another part of the complex, several halls mimic an airport with a conveyor belt, another lined with racks on which several large and small bags have been placed, while a third has several lockers built against a wall that look like a post office — dummy environments in which the under-training dogs learn to detect narcotics on baggage, vehicles, parcels, humans and buildings.

“Since its inception, the Customs Canine Centre at Attari has trained 34 dogs. The K9 Squad is truly keeping India safe from drugs,” top officials of the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs, parent department of the K9 Centre, told The Tribune.

Though India Customs has deployed canines since 1984, it was only in 2020 that they established their own centre to train dogs in specifics that their sphere demands.

“A Customs dog works in an atmosphere where it encounters mostly genuine passengers and bona fide trade. It requires specialised training for detection of narcotics, currency, wildlife, tobacco in varying environments of airports, ports, foreign passport offices, etc. Until 2020, we deployed dogs trained by other paramilitary forces whose training modules are oriented towards active indications like barking and aggression.

“But India Customs is totally different. We need a module focused on passive indications like silently sitting, observing and sniffing. Hence the K9 Centre in Attari,” Veena Rao, in charge of the Attari Centre, told The Tribune.

She said the Centre’s graduate canines had earned a reputation for themselves as unique force multipliers who security clear passengers and their luggage in the fastest way at 200 Customs checkpoints across the country.

The centre’s training process is truly unique. It all begins with the bonding between dog and handler — the centre follows a one-dog-one-handler policy — which yields to a 32-week training across several physical and psychological aspects.

“The training begins when the dog is three months old. The most important part is to train the dog to follow commands, to refuse food from strangers unless instructed by the handler to accept. Next, a pup is taught not to bark or get anxious,” explained Abhinav Gupta, Commissioner, Customs Preventive Commissionerate Amritsar, which runs the centre.

Behavioural training is followed by “specialised detection training”, where canines are taught “nose work” — they are slowly trained to memorise odours so that they can detect narcotics or “volatile organic compounds” in real time. This involves the ability to sniff 13 kinds of narcotics, including heroin, cocaine, meth, ecstasy, marijuana, fentanyl, lysergic acid diethylamide (LSD), phencyclidine (PCP) and morphine, Gupta said.

“The canines can also detect drugs even though they are masked by strong smelling agents like perfumes, coffee and spices,” Rao said.

On the cards is a new course in training canines to detect counterfeit currency.

The training begins when the dog is three months old and goes on for eight months, till he is 11 months old — the centre doesn’t have female dogs. Practice periods are intense — 30 minutes of active duty followed by 15 minutes of break, and repeat, for several hours a day. Their diet is wholesome and consists of freshly cooked meals twice a day. The dogs retire at nine years of age — but only Customs officials are allowed to adopt them.

The Tribune met two trainers at the Attari centre. Both former Army men, Prem Chand and Des Raj revealed that the centre follows a completely non-punitive approach to training its dogs, unlike the punishment-based Koehler method that includes shock therapy and dominance-training preferred in western nations.

“We reward the canine with a special diet when it does well,” said Rao. She pointed to the hall which contained a canine shed, a vet clinic, agility equipment and modern sanitary fittings — everything a dog could possibly need.

Rao didn’t need to add the name of the one ingredient that seemed plentifully obvious — love. All the canines seemed well cared for. From all accounts, the centre is already acquiring an international reputation. The Australian Border Force has visited the K9 Centre, which has also participated in the Global Canine Forum at the World Customs Organisation in Brussels.

34 dogs have graduated so far

• The Customs Canine Training Centre at Attari, close to the Indo-Pak Border, has so far trained and deployed 34 detection dogs for anti-smuggling operations
• In the latest bust, K9 Nancy and K9 Yasmi, trained in Amritsar, seized 32 kg ganja at Kolkata Customs