Bomb Detection Dog is Honored with Hero's Funeral in Viral Video

Simba, a bomb detection dog in Mumbai, was honored for his service with a state funeral and three-gun salute after his death on March 4.

A photo posted on Twitter by Abhishek Joshi, who runs a dog lover blog, depicted Simba lying in rest under strings of flowers at his funeral ceremony. His forehead was marked with a red paste and incense burned in front of him.

Twitter user @Khushboo_ replied to the thread with a video from the same ceremony, showing police officers honoring the dog. This video was also shared on a Reddit forum where it has reached over 10,000 upvotes.

Simba worked on the bomb detection and disposal squad (BDDS) for the Mumbai police, according to The Times of India. He joined the force in 2013. At nine years old, he had been sick and undergoing treatment for the last month and a half before succumbing to his illness. His funeral and cremation took place at a veterinary hospital in Parel, Mumbai.

Dogs are considered to be the most effective bomb detectors, according to the security service MSA Security. Despite a sum of $19 billion spent on research and development dedicated to bomb detection technology, no machine has been proven to identify explosives better than a dog.

Since a dog's nose deconstructs an odor into its components, it can isolate the chemicals it has been trained to detect, even when the scent has been masked by another odor.

Cairo, the Belgian Malinois who participated in the assassination of Osama Bin Laden in 2011, is one of the most famous dogs to serve the United States military. During the raid, Cairo's job was to clear buildings, sniff out bombs and traps, hold off crowds and search for false walls or hidden doors where Bin Laden could be hiding.

Former President Barack Obama first heard of Cairo's role while meeting with Seal Team Six, the group that killed Bin Laden. "I want to meet that dog," Obama said. Cairo was brought in from a separate room to meet the president.

Another Belgian Malinois dog was hailed as a hero after racing through an underground tunnel and cornering the Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in Syria in 2019. The dog, named Conan, suffered injuries when al-Baghdadi detonated a suicide vest. The leader killed himself along with three children and caused the dead-end tunnel to collapse. Due to Conan's efforts, dozens of operators on the ground completed the mission unharmed.