Sniffer dog Prince, the hero of 26/11, loses battle for life, gets 21-gun salute by police

While Mumbai Police fondly remembers 10-year-old Prince, a black labrador, for detecting four live bombs and 17 hand grenades that night, his handlers know him as an aggressive, possessive but playful dog.

“I picked him up the first time when he was barely three-months old, and I today picked him up to bury him,” said constable Mahendra Kasekar with BDDS. Kasekar said in his (Prince) last few weeks, Prince could not eat much and was not even able to consume his calcium medicines. “He was in severe pain,” the constable said.

“I first met Prince in December 2004 in Pune where I was given the responsibility to be his handler. My then superior Steven Anthony had named him ‘Prince’ and indeed he behaved like his name. Prince was not friendly with other dogs and always felt himself to be superior to them,” the constable said.

Kasekar and his partner constable Kishor Nawar have been Prince’s dog handlers for the past 10 years. Prince had retired from the BDDS responsibilities on August 31.

Recounting the numerous bombs they found, Kasekar said, “On 26/11, live bombs were found outside Trident and behind Taj. Three days after the terror attacks, Prince detected a live bomb in a bag in a parcel room at Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus.”

Mumbai Police’s spokesperson Dhananjay Kulkarni said Prince had even played a vital role in 2006 serial blast, where he detected a bomb inside an ice cream van.

rohit.alok@expressindia.com