The echo of the drone attack by the US on Iran killing the Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani was heard in Punjab on Friday. Just about a week after the attack, Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta minced no words to say that the increasing use of drones was indeed a “matter of concern”, especially as far as the VIP security is concerned.
To make the matters worse, a drone was hard to detect. The DGP said that a drone makes a little noise and there was no technology to detect its presence, making visual spotting the only effective method to check its presence.
The State has been on high alert since the outbreak of drone activity along the Indo-Pak border in August when the drones were first sighted, followed by the recovery of two in August and September.
The state police is working in close coordination with the Border Security Forces (BSF) to check the drone activity across the border.
Admitting drones to be a “threat”, Gupta said that drones are of different specifications and capacities according to its make.
“VIP security is a matter of concern. Especially, as the recent instances are there where the drones are being used to attack,” said DGP while mentioning the US killing Iranian army commander, besides other similar cases.
At the same time, he expressed serious concern over its “easy availability” and “simple operation” of drones.
“The drones are not difficult to operate. Moreover, one can even order it from a website and get it. One does not require any special skills or training to operate a drone, in fact one can learn and it by going through the instructions,” said the DGP.
He pointed that one of the three persons arrested by the Punjab Police, Army soldier Rahul Chauhan, had bought a drone from OLX website.
“Chauhan has revealed that he bought a black coloured, partially damaged Drone – Aspire 02 model – during the second half of 2019 from OLX for about Rs 1.50 lakh, which was partially damaged. After repairing the drone, he sold it on OLX for about Rs 2.75 lakhs. From these sale proceeds, Rahul purchased a new Drone – DJI Inspire 02 model for about Rs 3.20 lakh from Pune and sold it to a criminal residing in Amritsar for Rs 5.70 lakh. He purchased another Drone – DJI Matrice 600 – for about Rs 5.35 lakh, and stored it in Karnal, from where it had been recovered,” said the DGP, indicating at the easy availability of the drones.
Regarding countering the drones, the DGP said that technologies to immobilize drone were available and efforts were on to develop them indigenously in the country too.
“As of now, we solely depend on visual spotting which is sole reliable method. These drones don’t have any light on it, and even its sound is not much. The sorties were made at night and spotting a drone at night is not an easy task,” he said adding that but the BSP personnel, and villagers have spotted the drone activity near the border.
The state police chief maintained that there are various technologies available. “One is cutting off the signal, like if beam, which is operating the drone, is cut through electro-magnetic. Then there are guns also. Various countries, like Israel, also have developed various anti-drone equipments,” he said.
Efforts were being made develop in-house solutions in the country, he added.
Following the increasing incidents of drone hovering inside Indian territory on Indo-Pak border, the state police department was considering to buy anti-drone equipment from Israel to detect such devices and jam communications between them and their operators.
