This year, drone intrusions at the India-Pakistan border have virtually doubled as terrorist organisations and drug traffickers operating out of Pakistan have stepped up their use of these aircraft to transport weapons, explosives, and drugs.
Data compiled by the Border Security Force (BSF), which protects the International Border (IB) with Pakistan, shows that 107 drone sightings were reported in the first seven months of this year, an increase from the 97 recorded for the entire year 2021.
Between January 1 and July 31 of this year, 93 drones were seen crossing into Punjab, where the majority of drone intrusions have been reported. Jammu has reported 14 drone intrusions (at the international border).
In contrast, only 64 drone intrusions at the IB in Punjab and 31 in Jammu were recorded during 2021. Last year, two drones were observed crossing the Line of Control (LOC) in Jammu, but so far this year, there have been no drone sightings there.
“There are still five months left of this year and activity to smuggle arms and explosives through various routes usually increases towards winter. Also, these are just those drones that our jawans could hear, notice, or that locals informed us about. It is very difficult to intercept, stall and deactivate all the drones at such a vast border,” said a BSF officer, who didn’t want to be named.
In addition to IEDs like tiffin (lunch-box) explosives and sticky bombs, the drones also drop drugs and counterfeit money. The weaponry dropped by the drones includes rifles, handguns, military-grade explosive RDX, detonators, grenades, and assembled and semi-assembled IEDs.
A senior counter-terrorism official, requesting anonymity, said “terror outfits such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and its offshoot in Jammu and Kashmir The Resistance Front (TRF), Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) as well as Khalistani outfits backed by Pakistani spy agency ISI are continuously using Chinese drones to send payloads via Amritsar, Jalandhar, Gurdaspur in Punjab and Kathua, R S Pura and Kanachak areas in Jammu”.
In reality, some of these weapons and IEDs that were delivered by drones have been used in terrorist attacks in the past two years in Ludhiana, Kashmir, and other places. For instance, the TRF attacked Jammu Air Force Station with two drones, using unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) that crossed the border and dropped two IEDs weighing between 3 and 5 kilogrammes each. This caused some of the buildings to be damaged. The case is being looked into by the National Investigation Agency (NIA), along with a dozen other cases involving the use of drones to deliver bombs in Punjab and Jammu.
With the assistance of local police, BSF has attempted to shoot down some of the drones or tracked their locations. The border force has also implemented a number of technologies, such as “Anti-Drone Guns,” which employ jammers to obstruct the drones’ radio and GPS signals and compel them to land.
In the Ferozepur, Amritsar, and Abohar areas of Punjab, it also fires at low-flying drones and has been successful in downing six drones this year as of July 15th. The BSF shot down two drones last year.
However, the BSF officer cited above said, “We don’t have a fool-proof solution to drone intrusions. We are working with the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), the Bureau of Police Research and Development (BPRD), and private companies to have modern technologies to deal with the threat of drones.”