Jammu and Kashmir police to acquire 100 more drones for aerial surveillance

To boost its aerial surveillance further, Jammu and Kashmir police is soon getting 100 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs)/drones.

Sources said Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) has approved a fresh budget for the J&K police under the police modernisation program (PMP) to procure 100 UAVs/drones, which will be the biggest procurement by the force so far.

“While the police had already procured some UAVs and drones out of its own budget in the past few years, the fresh consignment of around 100 UAVs will be added in the months ahead,” they said.

As per the police specifications, the UAVs will be of category 3, which is considered the latest and equipped with all sorts of technology required by the police in Kashmir keeping in view the terrain and mountainous region.

With the procurement of the new drones, the J&K Police will be better equipped to handle not only anti-militancy operations but also anti-India protests. After the August 5, decision (scrapping of Article 370), it was observed that drones acted as a major deterrent for protests to take place.

A senior police officer said that UAVs will help the force to trace militant locations and also help in the aerial sanitisation of an area where there is a VIP movement.

“At the moment drones are only available with the force in sensitive districts that include south Kashmir and Srinagar. The plan is to provide at least two drones to each police station in a phased manner,” he said, adding the procurement of 100 drones is just a beginning and in the months ahead, each police station will be covered.

In 2019, J&K Police had floated tenders to procure 50 drones but due to technical glitches, the process couldn’t be completed.

So far, the Army had been using UAVs in Kashmir to track the movement of infiltrators along the Line of Control (LoC) and forest areas. There have also been reports of the Army using small UAVs during encounters with militants in hinterland.