Alert BSF troops chase away hexacopter from Pakistan which on a surveillance mission

New Delhi, July 02: The BSF troops fired at a small hexacopter belonging to Pakistan this morning at around 4.25 am. The hexacopter was trying to cross the International Border in the Arnia Sector. BSF officials said that due to the firing, the quad copter returned immediately.

According to a BSF spokesman a small hexacopter belonging to Pakistan was trying to cross the IB in the Arnia sector. But due to firing by alert BSF jawans, it returned immediately. He said it was meant for carrying out surveillance of the area.

The BSF jawans fired 5 to 6 rounds towards the drone following which the drone flew away. The drone was coming from the Pakistan post Zummat, 4 chinab rangers and was flying just near the IB, but could not cross the fence.

The Border Security Force has so far recorded at least 90 drone sightings. The BSF even spotted drones in naxal affected areas as well in eastern India.

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.