How Sniffer Dog 'Leo' Found Missing Mumbai Child, 6, Within Hours

It was a trained police sniffer dog that helped reunite a six-year-old boy with his parents within three-and-a-half hours of his parents approaching the police for help on Friday night. 'Leo' - the sniffer dog who was tasked to find the child and managed to track him down within hours of being pressed into service.

The child went missing last week, on November 23, while playing with his friends near his hutment in the Ashok Nagar slum in Mumbai's suburb Powai.

When he did not return home for long, his family members expressed concern and initiated a search but they couldn't find him, leaving them with no other option but to go to the police.

Due to the absence of closed-circuit television (CCTV) in the slum area, cops used the well-trained dog squad of the Mumbai Police. As a part of the operation, the sniffer dog Leo was asked to track down the child on the basis of the smell of his T-shirt.

Police took Leo to the boy's house and it could track the child to an open ground just 500 meters from his house. According to police, the child was found in Ambedkar Udyan, Ashok Tower area.

Cops are now using local intelligence and other technical means to try to identify and track the accused.