Virendra Pandit
New Delhi: With China supplying cheap drones to a bankrupt Pakistan to settle scores against India by indirect means, terrorism has a new face in the subcontinent: affordable, targeted, air-borne terror attacks with no accountability.
India has taken up the matter with the United Nations and also lodged a strong protest with Pakistan after a drone was spotted hovering over the Indian High Commission in Islamabad last week.
According to media reports on Friday, a drone was spotted on June 27 in the residential complex of the Indian High Commission in Islamabad causing a huge alarm for the Indian security establishment.
India immediately took up this major security breach in the diplomatic enclave in Islamabad with that country’s Foreign Office.
Such an incident was witnessed and reported for the first time. It came after the first-ever weaponized drone attack at the Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Jammu in the early hours of Sunday. Two IAF personnel were injured in the explosions that took place around 1.40 am within six minutes. The aerial distance from the Jammu airport to the international border is only 14 km.
The National Investigating Agency (NIA) is probing the role of suspected Pakistan-based terrorists in deploying unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to strike at vital installations in the country.
Another attempt to attack a military installation with the help of drones was foiled by an alert Army at the Ratnuchak-Kaluchak station who fired at the UAVs.
On Friday morning, the Border Security Force (BAF) opened fire on a drone after it tried to enter the Indian territory on the International Border in Jammu, officials said. The BSF jawans spotted it in the Arnia sector on the outskirts of Jammu around 4.25 am. When they opened fire to bring it down, the suspected drone rushed back to the Pakistani side.
An anti-drone system has been installed at the IAF base in Jammu amid multiple sightings to tackle the threat of quadcopters.
India also raised the issue at the United Nations. Speaking at the ‘Global scourge of terrorism: assessment of current threats and emerging trends for the new decade’, Special Secretary (Internal Security), Ministry of Home Affairs in the Government of India, V S K Kaumudi said, “Being a low-cost option and easily available, utilization of these aerial/sub-surface platforms for sinister purposes by terrorist groups such as intelligence collection, weapon/explosives delivery, and targeted attacks have become an imminent danger and challenge for security agencies worldwide.”
“Today, misuse of information and communication technology such as internet and social media for terrorist propaganda, radicalization and recruitment of cadre; misuse of new payment methods and crowd-funding platforms for the financing of terrorism; and misuse of emerging technologies for terrorist purposes have emerged as the most serious threats of terrorism and will decide the counter-terrorism paradigm going forward,” he added at the 2nd High-Level Conference of the Head of Counter-Terrorism Agencies of the Member States in the General Assembly.