Borderman grows irritated if he does not get his food by noon, as does Dara. Star performers both, they won gold medals at an event in Patna, Bihar, around a month ago – Borderman in Open Show Jumping and Dara in Show Jumping. Borderman and Dara, both 11, are horses with Delhi’s mounted police. One afternoon last week, as they dug into their fodder, occasionally flexing their thighs and waving their tails to ward off flies, their neighbour in the North Delhi stable, Mastermind, at 14 the oldest in the troop, kept kicking his legs and shaking his head frantically.
“Mastermind always wants more attention than the others,” said Hari Kishan, 51, an assistant sub-inspector and horse rider in the Delhi mounted police, which has a troop of 31 horses. “He was so named for his intelligence but he has never been much of an athlete in his seven years of service.”
A few blocks away from the stable in the Old Police Lines, Rajender Dubey, assistant commissioner in the mounted police, sat behind a desk cluttered with files. An inspector went hurriedly into Dubey’s office and spoke briefly with him. As he left, Dubey look relieved and asked his assistant for a cup of tea. The inspector had brought good news: the test results of the three horses had arrived and they did not, as had been suspected, have the equine disease glanders. It was the last set of tests, Dubey said: “Earlier in January, the other horses in the troop had also tested negative.”
Many of Dubey’s horses will be deployed for the Republic Day function and had any of them tested positive, it would have spoiled the plans.
Glanders alert
Glanders is an infectious disease that primarily affects horses, donkeys and mules, but can be transmitted to people who come in contact with the infected animals. It is caused by the bacterium Burkholderia mallei, which usually enters the body through contaminated food or water. Symptoms include nodular lesions in lungs and ulcers in the respiratory tract. In India, no case of a human suffering from glanders has been reported so far, senior officials in the Delhi government said.
The Delhi government had issued a public notification warning about glanders on December 21 after five horses in the city, all privately owned, tested positive for the disease. Then, owners of all equines – there are 2,694 of them in the city, according to the animal husbandry department – were asked to send blood samples of their animals so they could be tested for glanders. While the blood samples of horses kept by the Army were sent to the Remount and Veterinary Corps College and Hospital in Meerut, Uttar Pradesh, the others were sent to the National Research Centre for Equines in Hisar, Haryana, the officials said.
Since the first cases of infection had appeared in the western district of Delhi, it was declared a controlled area and the movement of equines was restricted. The restriction was extended to the entire city after more horses tested positive over the next two weeks, and another notification was issued in early January.
So far, samples of over 2,000 equines from Delhi have been tested in the Hisar laboratory and 40 have tested positive for glanders. All of them were owned by civilians, animal husbandry officials said.
Alarm bells for Republic Day
The notifications sent alarm bells ringing in the Army and the police as their horses participate in the Republic Day celebrations. While the Army’s horses participate in the parade at India Gate, the horses of the mounted police are deployed for security around Lutyens’ Delhi; a few participate in the Republic Day function organised by the Delhi government in Chhatrasal Stadium.
“No Army horse tested positive for glanders,” said a senior official at the Remount and Veterinary Corps College and Hospital who asked not to be identified. “Horses owned by the armed forces are anyway kept separate from others and most of them have to go through multiple health check-ups every time they are deployed for any arrangement, participate in any event or are taken to other cities.”
Glanders among equines is incurable, the official said. As a consequence, horses that contract the disease are legally required to be euthanised.
“None of the police horses have tested positive for glanders,” said Sharat Kumar Sinha, deputy commissioner in the provisions and logistics department of the Delhi police. “They shall be deployed in security arrangements and the Delhi government function for Republic Day as planned. The samples of the horses belonging to our troop were sent in batches and all results have been received.”
For police horses, too, care is taken to ensure they do not mingle with others. And they too have to go through rigorous health checks throughout the year, Sinha said.