Dangers of drone
Border guarding forces will have to counter the challenges from increased use of drone by adversaries
The recent event of shooting down of drone on Samba (Jammu) International Border (IB), which was carrying automatic rifle, ammunition and hand grenade has once again alarmed the security agencies about the growing use of Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) by terrorists and smugglers to dispatch their consignments across International Border with least investment and risk. The use of UAVs for surveillance purpose by armed forces is not new at IB and they have been regularly used by all forces for reconnaissance and surveillance purpose but in last couple of years in Western border of India these UAVs are increasingly now being used by non-conventional agents. Even in Galwan incident at LAC there has been reports in print media that counterpart used UAVs in monitoring movement of troops.
But in case of India the UAVs are till now are used only for either surveillance or dispatching consignment by terrorists and smugglers across IB, but use of this machine as weapon or laden with explosives to hot targets well into depth areas cannot be denied. These drones are commercially easily available and its operation does not require any specialized training or practice. The use of drones by terrorist was very well demonstrated by alleged attacks carried out by Houthi rebels on Saudi Air bases in Yemen. Even more dangerous is the probably of use of drones laden with chemical and biological weapons which has the potential to cause large scale harm to public and property as compared to use conventional weapons. There are ample of videos available on social media which teaches how drones can be used to carry out attacks on targets with greater precision, this is helping the rogue elements to opt for such machine which can easily be used for causing harm to society.
Another big challenge is the traceability and accountability of user of these machines, as these do not requires any license or registration, in addition to it uses very simple machinery which do not have any kind of history to trace its ownership and flight path. These machines fly at very low altitude so their detection by radar and air defense system is very difficult. There is strong possibility that security especially border guarding forces are going to face even more use of UAVs by terrorists, smugglers and State actors to carry out mission of surveillance, dispatch of consignment and use it as weapon, now it is to be seen how the security establishment and strategists are going to deal with fast evolving problem for security.
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