With insurgents on run, drones from Pak a new challenge in J&K

With air surveillance and smuggling of narcotics and arms through Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) also called drones from Pakistan becoming a new challenge for security agencies in Jammu and Kashmir, there is a complete need to counter the threat before it reaches an alarming proportion, security experts believe.

The drones sent in from Pakistan neither blink nor buzz which makes it difficult to spot them during night hours, the experts added referring to drones sent in the recent times.

“There is an immediate need to procure the latest anti-drone technology to stop unabated smuggling of narcotics and currency through drones from Pakistan for the terror operatives along the International Border (IB) and Line of Control (Loc) in J&K,” a senior police officer told DH.

“As terrorists are on the run after 2019, drones have emerged as another challenge for the security forces as Pakistanis use the technology to prolong the 33-year-long proxy war in Kashmir,” he said.

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In December last year, the Union Home Ministry during a high-level security meeting on J&K in Delhi had reportedly raised serious concern over the rising challenge of the smuggling of drugs and the arms through drones over the IB in Jammu and the LoC in Kashmir.

According to Sandeep Shah, co-founder of Optimized Electrotech, long range surveillance platforms have the ability to detect threats and provide actionable intelligence in all light or weather conditions and in places like J&K.

“These Artificial Intelligence (AI) enabled products can detect human beings from great distances and can also do intelligent identification of friend or foe. Since the products have edge analytics on board, they can be deployed 24x7 without any human intervention, any detected threat or anomaly will be flagged and alarms will be raised automatically,” Shah told DH over phone.

The founder of the Optimized Electrotech, a defence technology startup founded in 2017 and based in Bangaluru, said that unmanned systems can also detect unauthorized drones and other vehicles as well help in keeping borders safe.

“Such products can also be deployed in remote and discreet locations, where they can act as wide area persistent surveillance systems and can look for threats only in the problematic areas thereby saving time and efforts,” he added.

Drones emerged as a major threat after two low flying UAVs were used to drop two Improvised Explosive Devices (IEDs) at a high-security technical area of Indian Air Force (IAF) Station Jammu in June 2020.

It was the first drone attack on any defence establishment in the country. After these attacks, the security agencies went into a huddle to counter the threat.