Srinagar: Decades before the martyrdom of Indian Army assault dogs ‘Zoom’ and ‘Axel’, a canine warrior — ‘Backer’ — had made the supreme sacrifice while detecting an improvised explosive device (IED) during the early phases of militancy in the Kashmir Valley in the mid-90s.
‘Backer’, a three-year-old Labrador deployed for road clearance, had sniffed out an IED in Anantnag. But it went off before it could be defused and he suffered fatal injuries, becoming the “first canine martyr of the Indian Army”, as mentioned in an old war diary maintained at the Srinagar-based unit he belonged to, a senior official told PTI.
The sniffer dog was part of the 12 Army Dog Unit (ADU), also known as the Chinar Hunters, and the senior army official belonging to the unit said “brave ‘Backer’ saved the lives of many soldiers and others by sacrificing his own”.
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