new delhiraipur the stellar role of canine soldiers in detecting explosives tracking terrorists and rescuing disaster victims came in for special mention during pm modis mann ki baat address on sunday while he also exhorted people to adopt indian breed dogs if they were planning to keep petstwo army bravehearts sophie a goldenbrown cocker spaniel and vida a black labrador received the chief of army staff commendation cards this independence day because they had performed their duties diligently while protecting their country said the pmour armed forces and security forces have many such brave dogs who not only live for the country but also sacrifice themselves for the country such canines have played a very important role in thwarting numerous bomb blasts and terrorist conspiracies he saidarmy officers said vida was instrumental in the detection of five mines and a grenade buried underground which prevented casualties among soldiers in kashmir sophie of the special frontier force bomb disposal squad in turn sniffed out an initiator or accelerant that could have been used to fabricate an ied in delhithe pm also mentioned balram a dog who uncovered ammunition on the amarnath yatra route in 2006 and bhawna who detected an ied but was killed along with her handler when it exploded while being defused in 2002two or three years ago in bijapur chhattisgarh a sniffer dog cracker a belgian malinois of crpf also attained martyrdom in an ied blast you might have also seen a very moving scene on tv a few days ago in which the beed police were giving their canine colleague rocky a final farewell rocky had helped the police in solving over 300 cases said modicrpf officials told toi that cracker was a highly skilled sniffer and had detected several ieds in bastar on april 7 2017 just since july last year army dogs have detected 30 ieds and other arms and ammunition as well as led to the elimination of five terroriststhe pm said fabulous indigenous breeds such as mudhol hound himachali hound rajapalayam kanni chippiparai and kombai were capable cheaper to raise and better adapted to the indian environmental conditionsour security agencies are also inducting these indian breed dogsthe next time you think of raising a pet dog consider bringing home one of these indian breeds at a time when atmanirbhar bharat is becoming a mantra of the people how can any domain be left untouched by its influence he saidchhattisgarhs counter terrorism and jungle warfare college ctjwc in bastar has also picked up four street dogs and put them through a ninemonth course to sniff out explosives up to 12 inches below the surface four trained mongrels were deployed during the april 2009 lok sabha elections in maoist strongholds