Small-size, stealth make drones lethal threat

New Delhi: The capability of drones to evade radar, wreak devastation at strategic installations and transport weapons to terrorists has been a continuous concern for the country's security establishment, and in a maiden incident, these unmanned vehicles were used to strike an IAF base in Jammu on Sunday.

The defence and internal security matrix of the country has been talking about threats posed by small and remote-controlled unmanned vehicles for the last two years with occasional incidents of Pakistan-sponsored armed drones being neutralised by the Border Security Force (BSF), the Punjab Police and other agencies along the India-Pakistan border.

A clutch of ministries and departments like that of home, civil aviation, Bureau of Civil Aviation Security (BCAS), the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) and the IAF have been working on plans and technologies to check and combat such attacks at sensitive civil airports and other facilities.

The central police think tank, BPRD, has also held a few multi-stakeholder national conferences on the subject to find out the most effective methods, both technology-wise and monetarily, to jam and neutralise these threats.

A senior Home ministry officer said that there have been incidents when drones were used for surveillance of Indian border assets and positions. But as soon as they were spotted and reaction mounted, the floaters rushed back to base where either terrorist elements or Pakistan military soldiers could be handling the remote, the officer said.