Drone threat needs action

It is laudable that police teams of Jammu Headquarters Zone have successfully foiled an attempt to push a huge consignment of heroin into Indian Territory in Bishnah Sector by recovering nearly 3 Kg of contraband. Such attempts by Pakistan using drone technology need to be countered through technological interventions as it is very difficult to counter all the attempts by the adversary nation to send arms and ammunition and illegal drugs to this side using high-tech drones.

The frequent sorties of Pakistani drones and recoveries made by Indian security forces, including the police, are testimony to the fact that still there are gaps and the rogue country Pakistan is taking undue advantage of these gaps to continue with narco-terrorism in J&K.

It is good that the security agencies have been maintaining an intensified round-the-clock vigil in the suspected border areas over the past several days after developing precise intelligence about attempts to smuggle narcotics through drones, and this successful operation is the outcome of the same but what is the need of the hour is a technology-driven fail-safe approach that completely prevents any illegal entry of the adversary nation’s drones into Indian Territory.

At the same time, there is also a need to strengthen coordination among all security and intelligence agencies operating in the border areas so that information related to suspicious drone movements can be shared in real time and acted upon without any delay. Border residents too can play a vital role in this fight against narco-terrorism by promptly informing the authorities about any unusual activity or unidentified flying objects seen during night hours. Public awareness campaigns should also be launched in vulnerable areas to sensitize people about the dangers of drugs and the larger conspiracy behind such smuggling attempts, which are aimed not only at spreading addiction among the youth but also at destabilizing peace and security in Jammu and Kashmir.

Of course, such systems are quite costly and it is difficult to procure them for the entire border stretch in J&K but what the government can do is seek assistance from premier technological institutions of the country like IITs and NITs by asking their administrations to develop cost-effective anti-drone systems by taking the help from their students, introducing this activity into their syllabus as projects and in return give them grades and rankings during the results. Whatever comes to the fore technologically after this should be used to bolster air security along the borders in J&K. By such an effort, many purposes can be solved and on deploying such cheap systems along the borders, the activity of drones coming from the Pakistani side can be monitored effectively, which is one of the most important issues the security agencies have been confronting right now.

Certainly, the country needs such out-of-the-box remedies to tackle the problem of smuggling through drones more effectively. With such an approach, even if the problem is not fully solved, it can still be controlled to a large extent and is the need of the hour.