It’s a dog’s life for cop canines in following scent of a criminal

When S Swathi, a woman software engineer was hacked to death in full public view at Nungambakkam railway station on Friday last, a police tracking dog was brought to the crime scene to track the murderer. However, the dog, after catching the scent, ran in the direction entirely opposite to the one taken by the accused, which was caught on various CCTV cameras outside the railway station. 

In another case, the police dog was distracted by a street mongrel and in yet another case, the dog ran towards a fish market, instead of following the scent. Police investigators say that the days of tracking dogs in criminal investigation has come to an end, at least in crowded cities like Chennai. The dogs are confused by the   prevalence of different smells, often due to many people using similar, popular deodorants and body sprays. Police say criminals have also become smarter as they know how to divert a tracking dog. 

“Dogs were helpful in tracking in the days when criminals hardly used vehicles and when crimes were committed in less crowded places. Moreover, the prevalence of leaving a crime scene accessible to the general public instead of securing it has rendered the service of tracking dogs completely useless,” a police official told DTNext. 

Police officials say that dogs are confused about the scents when brought to a crowded area and give wrong leads. In most cases, the dogs are brought to the scene of crime after several hours of crime and that also confuses the dog. 

“There is no dearth of training sessions for the squad. However, tracking a particular scent, especially the body odour of a criminal through a crowded place is very challenging. Dogs get confused when they are asked to pick up a scent from the scene of crime unless we give them something that was left at the crime scene by the accused. We do not remember a single case in recent times where we got a strong lead from a tracking dog,” another official said. 

Surprisingly, the dog squad department, which has around 30 of the trained animals under its wing, has no data to show the commendable efforts of the canines. Officials attached to the wing told DTNext that police investigators do not share information on the field performance of the dog squad. “We have been told that there had been cases where dogs have helped solve a case. But we have no data to quantify the cases as these information, if recorded, is not shared with us,” a senior police official said.