Customs officials get battle-ready, dog squad US-trained

Customs officials get battle-ready, dog squad US-trained

Mumbai customs officers are all set to emerge as a reinvented team of officers, with the new customs commissioner PM Salim embarking on a plan, which spans from imparting weapon-training to his team members to inviting a specialised team from the US to train the dog squad at the Mumbai international airport. Recently, a drug enforcement administration team from the US department of justice landed here to train the dog squad of the customs department in new methods to better detect narcotic consignments at the airport. “The US team showed us how they handle their sniffer dogs, who are very good in the detection of narcotics,” said a customs officer at the airport. It was no surprise when soon after their training the sniffer dogs, who had not detected any narcotics consignment in the last one-and-a-half months, started barking endlessly at a woman carrier who had carefully packed heroine inside milk chocolates. Further, the customs officers have been asked to revive their weapon-training programme, with five officers from the Air Intelligence Unit having already been sent to Indore to partake firing training along with the CRPF men. Mumbai customs is also in talks with the local police to allow its officers to practise at the Ghatkopar firing range along with them. “From our conversation with the Mumbai police, it looks very positive that we will be getting full support from them,” said an officer. “For a long time, officers had been neglecting weapon-training as they think the security of the airport is in the hands of the specially deployed Central Industrial Security Force (CISF). But it may be that for investigation purposes we are required to visit risky places to make further arrests, and there are heavy chance of us getting attacked. The new commissioner is trying to apply all possible steps to reinvent our officers at airport,” said another senior officer on the request of anonymity. Although customs officers have arms and ammunition allotted to them for a long time, they have not been practising. However, in Salim’s rule, it’s going be the compulsory for every one of them.