11 Pakistan-made grenades seized as Indian security forces fire shots

New Delhi, Dec 21: In a major operation, security forces have seized 11 hand grenades suspected to have been deployed by a drone flying in from Pakistan into Gurdaspur in Punjab.

The ordinance factory made drones from Pakistan were used to send in the grenades. The consignment of Arges Type HG-84 series grenades were packed in a plastic box. This is the 8th instance of ammunition being smuggled from across the border.

The Intelligence Bureau had cautioned security officials about the ISI's moves to upgrade newer versions of the drones from China.

Earlier this month, BSF, Director General Rakesh Asthana, spoke about the challenges posed by drones that are being used by Pakistan. At the raising day event of the force on Tuesday, Asthana said that the BSF had intercepted a drone with huge payload of weapons and ammunition in Jammu's Kathua on June 20.

He said that the BSF is working to find technical solutions to counter-drone infiltrations on the western border.

In the past couple of months, the Intelligence Bureau has raised concerns about Pakistan using bigger drones to smuggle in arms and ammunition in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) on the other hand designated Bharat Electronics as the lead agency for the production and development of an anti-drone system.

This is an important development since rogue drones have become India's latest security headache. These drones are a potential threat and the government had been looking for solutions to counter this problem. In this regard the agencies conducted a data estimation and learnt that there are over 6 lakh rogue or unregulated drones of various sizes and capacities.

Recent incidents like the lethal drone attack on Saudi Arabia's largest petroleum company and arms dropping by UAVs in Punjab from across the India-Pakistan border has only alerted the agencies to come up with a plan to counter the drones.

These agencies are now looking at some specific anti-drone techniques like sky fence, drone gun, ATHENA, drone catcher and Skywall 100 to intercept and immobilise suspicious and lethal remote-controlled aerial platforms.

A recent paper titled 'Drones: A new frontier for Police' published in the Indian Police Journal (IPJ) by IPS officer and Additional Director General in Rajasthan Police, Pankaj Kumar Singh, has talked about these new techniques.

A drone gun is capable of jamming the radio, global positioning system (GPS) and mobile signal between the drone and the pilot and forces the drone to ground in good time before it could wreak any damage. This Australia designed weapon has an effective range of 2 kms, the paper said.

Another solution to block a lethal drone is the sky fence system that uses a range of signal disruptors to jam the flight path and prevent them from entering their target, a sensitive installation or event venue, it said.

Officials said prototypes of these counter-drone weapons were displayed for the first time at an open field in a BSF camp in Bhondsi, Haryana last week as part of a national conference organised by the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD) on anti-drone technology.

The Centre now wants to impart training to police officers of all states to check this menace. The Bureau of Police Research and Development is currently in talks with the police chiefs of all states so that training can be imparted to counter new terror threats that have been emerging.

OneIndia had reported recently that, a new committee was constituted by Union Home Minister, Amit Shah to analyse the various threats, including the ones that are posed by drones. In Punjab, the police found that drones were used by Pakistan to drop off weapons at the border areas, so that it could be transported to Jammu and Kashmir.

The committee held a demonstration on the anti-drone technology in Haryana, where several officers took part. Sources tell OneIndia that rogue drones pose a major threat.

This would be one of the key threats in the coming days. The police force needs to be sensitised to such threats, the officer also said.

The programme would include training in anti-drone detection, tracking and identification.