In an incident that has become talk of the town in Madhya Pradesh, two dogs of an IAS officer hoodwinked his staff and escaped while being shifted from Bhopal to New Delhi. One dog was captured while a massive manhunt had been launched for the other.
The officer, Mr Rahul Dwivedi, a 2010-batch IAS officer of Maharashtra cadre, was recently posted as Executive Director of public sector behemoth REC. He deployed a retinue of his staff to transport the canines to Delhi. As the staff got down at a dhaba near Dabra town in Gwalior district to have supper, both ferocious Alsatians, bolted from the car.
While one dog was later captured by the staff, the second dog is as yet untraceable. The staff not only lodged an FIR with Dabra police but also put up posters all over the place appealing to the people to look out for the dogs.
Police, too have launched a massive manhunt for the two pedigreed dogs. Police also roped in staff from the Gwalior Zoo to look for the missing canine.
Police Tightlipped
The Gwalior administration, because of some scattered stories in local media, is keeping the information top secret. SP Gwalior Rajesh Singh Chandel told The Processor that he doesn’t have much information to share on the incident.
The Sub-Divisional Officer of Police (SDOP) of Dabra Mr Vivek Sharma however, admitted that one dog has indeed been found, but there still is no trace of the second dog.
The posters put up in the area have not only a photograph of the missing dog but have also announced ‘adequate reward’ for the person giving information of the dog. The poster has two mobile numbers belonging to one Mr Pawan Gayakwad.
Complainant Shuts Up
However, Mr Gayakwad was not too forthcoming either on the incident or on the owner of the dog and the manhunt. “Please call only if you have some lead on the missing dog”, he quipped before disconnecting the phone.
The police manhunt for the bureaucrat’s dog, is reminiscent of a similar hunt for a missing buffalo of a UP Minister Mohd Azam Khan a few years back. Though buffaloes were found a few days later, but three cops had been suspended on charges of ‘dereliction of duty’.