Indian city considers using trained rats to sniff explosives

The security authorities of the Indian city of Hyderabady security have suggested a novel plan to fight terrorists: Deploying sniffer rats along with sniffer dogs. The plan is to train rats to sniff explosives. These sniffer rats are helpful in tracing land mines laid by terrorists. They are able to scurry into crevices which cannot be accessed by dogs. When the trained rat squads find a mine or an explosive, they stand on their hind legs alongside it, until an expert comes up to either defuse or destroy it with a controlled blast.

Experts say sensitive organs of rats work more efficiently than dogs. Once rats are given specialized training they will work better then dogs. Hyderabad-based Center for Cellular and Molecular Biology (CCMB) scientists have approved the plan. Rodents can reach narrow places and give signals which can alert security teams for further investigation. According the view of CCMB scientists, if properly trained they can prove to be useful. Given the low learning ability of the rats, however, the training has to be very specialized. Sniffer dogs are trained for ten months. Out of this the first four months are spent in teaching them basic obedience and the remaining for training them to search for and sniff out explosives. When compare to this the training of rats will work out much cheaper and easier.

Recently, in Hyderabad terror attacks have been on the rise. There is acute shortage of sniffer dogs in the city. At present the city security wing only has seventeen sniffer dogs instead of the required strength of twenty-seven. Despite being equipped with deep search mine detectors, explosives detectors, and bomb suits, the search teams require these dogs to search and detect explosives.