Chandigarh: The unabated incidents of drone intrusions from Pakistan which breach India's border security to airdrop drugs, arms, and ammunition in the border areas of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir Union Territory (JKUT) have become a serious cause of concern not only for the Border Security Force (BSF) but also for the police force in both the border states.
The innovative drone tactics adopted by the Pak's ISI-backed drug cartels and insurgent groups have forced India to install anti-drone technology all across the 553 kilometre Indo Pak border in Punjab but it has its own constraints given the fact that drone technology is not only constantly evolving but they have also become affordable and easy to use even by the inexpert drone pilots.
During the current year, two dozen sorties were reportedly made by Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAV) flying from Pakistan in JKUT while more than two dozen Pak drones sightings were made in different regions of Punjab, especially in the Amritsar and Gurdaspur sectors.
On August 18, the National Investigation Agency (NIA), India's premier investigation agency probing the incidents of terrorism etc. conducted searches at 8 different locations in Srinagar, Jammu, Kathua, Samba, and Doda in the cases related to the interception of a drone used for delivery of consignments of arms, ammunition, explosives etc.
On July 27 2022, a Pakistani drone successfully managed to airdrop around five kilograms of heroin on the ground of a school at Neshta village which is over one kilometre inside Indian territory from Indo Pak international border in Amritsar. Last year on June 27, an explosion inside the premises of the Air Force Station Satwari campus, Jammu was reported to be carried out by an unknown drone.
These are some of the examples of how the Pak crafts dodge the Indian security forces.
Jawans of BSF, India's first line of defence react, often by opening fire in the direction of a drone, after either hearing the buzzing of the coming flying object from across the border or, in some cases, after seeing it. During night-time, illumination rounds are fired to illuminate the area before opening fire and in some cases, they have successfully shot down the enemy drone.
Intelligence sources informed a national news channel that besides airdropping contrabands, the Pak UAVs also carry out spying in the Indian Territory. With each sortie, the drone pilot sitting across the border gains valuable experience.
BSF claims to have installed the anti-drone equipment in some areas on Indo Pak international border but every technology has its limitations.
“The technologies which we have installed can detect a drone in the range of 3 to 5 kilometres and there has to be another similar instrument after this range to keep the Pak flying object under continuous observation but the required number of instruments has not been installed so far,” said sources.
The question remains whether the BSF will be able to cope up with the groundbreaking improvements in drone technology and continues to upgrade its system or the anti-drone technology installed now will be obsolete in near future.
