DEHRADUN: Uttarakhand’s Udham Singh Nagar District Police nominated a member of its dog team for the department’s ‘best personnel of the month’ award for sniffing out a murder suspect ‘within 30 seconds’ of being deployed on the case and having assisted the police solve the crime.
German shepherd Katie caught the suspect in the murder case recorded on March 6 this year, in which a 21-year-old man, Shakib Ahmad, was found dead with wound marks on his body. Shakib’s body was recovered from a field under the Jaspur police limits of the district.
She was then ordered to smell a blood-stained cloth belonging to Shakib which was found a few meters from his body. Police subsequently asked the suspects, including members of Shakib’s family, to line up in front of her in a kind of identification parade.
Calling his ‘district dog team pride’, SSP (Udham Singh Nagar) Manjunath TC told TOI on Saturday, ‘Within 30 seconds of sniffing the cloth, he started barking at the cousin of Shakib Qasim, standing second in the row, suggesting that he is the culprit. Based on his finding, we questioned Qasim who collapsed and confessed. He was then arrested.”
The police department also announced a cash reward of Rs 2,500 for Kattie on 7 March along with the ‘best staff of the month’ award. It would be the first such instance where a member of the canine team was nominated for the award in the state, the SSP said, adding, “Canine Kattie would be awarded a citation and a memento, which would be kept by the handler of she”.
Commending Kattie’s efforts, SHO of Jaspur, PS Danu expressed, “Without her help, the police would have taken time to resolve the case. Our normal process would have included checking the CCTV footage, scanning details of calls and questioning locals. In Kattie’s case, there was little doubt about her “findings” because the blood-stained cloth was not touched by anyone other than Qasim. Following a discussion , the accused, in a state of intoxication, killed Shakib on the night of March 5.
Kattie’s handler, Yogendra Raghav, also revealed that it wasn’t the first time Kattie had helped the police catch suspects. She said: “Since joining the service in 2016, she has so far helped solve at least seven cases involving murder, loot, rape and other serious crimes in the district. About a week ago, he had caught the defendant in another murder case in the Kiccha area of the district.”
German shepherd Katie caught the suspect in the murder case recorded on March 6 this year, in which a 21-year-old man, Shakib Ahmad, was found dead with wound marks on his body. Shakib’s body was recovered from a field under the Jaspur police limits of the district.
She was then ordered to smell a blood-stained cloth belonging to Shakib which was found a few meters from his body. Police subsequently asked the suspects, including members of Shakib’s family, to line up in front of her in a kind of identification parade.
Calling his ‘district dog team pride’, SSP (Udham Singh Nagar) Manjunath TC told TOI on Saturday, ‘Within 30 seconds of sniffing the cloth, he started barking at the cousin of Shakib Qasim, standing second in the row, suggesting that he is the culprit. Based on his finding, we questioned Qasim who collapsed and confessed. He was then arrested.”
The police department also announced a cash reward of Rs 2,500 for Kattie on 7 March along with the ‘best staff of the month’ award. It would be the first such instance where a member of the canine team was nominated for the award in the state, the SSP said, adding, “Canine Kattie would be awarded a citation and a memento, which would be kept by the handler of she”.
Commending Kattie’s efforts, SHO of Jaspur, PS Danu expressed, “Without her help, the police would have taken time to resolve the case. Our normal process would have included checking the CCTV footage, scanning details of calls and questioning locals. In Kattie’s case, there was little doubt about her “findings” because the blood-stained cloth was not touched by anyone other than Qasim. Following a discussion , the accused, in a state of intoxication, killed Shakib on the night of March 5.
Kattie’s handler, Yogendra Raghav, also revealed that it wasn’t the first time Kattie had helped the police catch suspects. She said: “Since joining the service in 2016, she has so far helped solve at least seven cases involving murder, loot, rape and other serious crimes in the district. About a week ago, he had caught the defendant in another murder case in the Kiccha area of the district.”
