A seven-year-old Belgian Malinois, named Diana by her handler, cracked a murder mystery in a matter of 10 minutes at Arjuni village of Adilabad in June. Diana sniffed the stone with which the man was bludgeoned to death and walked straight to his wife, the kingpin, who was standing about 50 feet from the body amid 150 locals. The dog even found the victim’s bike that was parked on the main road before he was attacked.
Jadav Gajender, 40, a teacher from ZP High School, Mediguda-K, was killed in broad daylight on the first day of school post summer vacation on June 12. The murder, planned by his wife and her paramour, was committed by two hired killers. The four accused were arrested and remanded the same day, thanks to the prompt detection by Diana, a veteran canine of the Telangana police force.
“Gajender’s wife Vijaylaxmi Jadav, along with the two hitmen, dragged him off his bike and bludgeoned him to death. While the two men fled, his wife wiped herself clean and ‘donned’ the role of a grieving widow. She was least suspected,” said P.
Ramesh, Head Constable in-charge of the sniffer dogs squad in Adilabad. Diana is among the 771 dogs trained at Moinabad’s Integrated Intelligence Training Academy (IITA) since its inception in 2006. It had trained 1,104 handlers so far.
The academy, located about 30 km from Hyderabad, is training 72 canines and about 100 handlers from across the country, including 20 from Bihar Police, in its 24th batch. The breeds include German.