COURTESY HT NOV 22

MP police to conduct dog’s DNA test

Police say the dog is friendly with both claimants.
Shruti Tomar

shruti.tomar@hindustantimes.com

Bhopal : The Madhya Pradesh police has decided to perform the DNA test of a three-year-old Labrador dog in an attempt to ascertain its parentage, and through that, its ownership, after two people claimed they were the dog’s human.

The Hoshangabad police was not willing to take chances as tone claimant is a journalist and another is a political activist.

Hoshangabad Dehat police station, in-charge, Hemant Shrivastava said that about three months ago Shadab Khan, a journalist, lodged a complaint that his three-year-old dog Coco was missing.

“On November 18, he claimed to have found his dog in the house of an Akhil Bhartiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) leader Kratik Shivhare. Shadab called the police and took the dog with him. Later, on November 19, Shivhare reached the police station and claimed that the dog belonged to him. He said the dog’s name Tiger and he purchased the dog from Itarsi a few weeks ago,” Shrivastava said.

Shrivastava said that the dog is responding to both the names, Coco and Tiger, and friendly with both claimants.

“As neither of them were willing to budge for two days, we decided to perform the DNA test. Shadab Khan said the parent of the dog was in Panchmarhi while Shivhare said the parent of his dog was in Itarsi,” said the police officer.

On Saturday, Srivastava dispatched a police team each to Panchmarhi and Itarsi to collect blood samples of the dog’s parents. The dog’s blood samples were collected on Friday night by district veterinary doctor and the police decided to allow Shivhare to keep the dog.

Both Khan and Shivhare insisted that the test will reveal the truth. Khan said, “I have submitted all the documents including a vaccination card to the police to prove my ownership and I insisted on a DNA test.” Shivhare said, “Shadab took the dog from my house without my permission and the test will prove the truth.”