Drones from across Pakistan border doubled in 2022, says BSF DG, raises security concerns

BSF Director General Pankaj Kumar Singh on Saturday stated that incidents of drones delivering drugs and weapons along the Punjab and Kashmir borders have doubled in 2022.

A barrage of drone flights from Pakistan "bombarded" the army on the western front. The department is currently working to find a possible solution to stop this threat. One such initiative is the establishment of a state-of-the-art laboratory in Delhi, which helped in seeking positive results.

The lab was first established in September 2021 and later enhanced in October. The department roughly invested Rs 50 lakhs ($65,129) in the lab, PTI reported.

He said, "The BSF has been at the receiving end of the drone menace for quite some time... The versatility of the drone, which is very well known, has been posing problems to us with nefarious elements have found new uses of the drone due to its anonymity and quick flight at sufficient height bypassing the frontiers."

he BSF DG stated that79 drone flights were detected from across the Indo-Pak border in 2020, the number climbed to 109 in 2021 which increased to 266 this year. Punjab, which saw 215 drone flights this year, is the main offender, Singh said. He added that security forces in Kashmir detected 22 flights.

The DG claimed that at first, the departmentstruggledwhen the drone fell they had "no clue" from where it was coming from. Singh said, "We then started getting into the forensics part. We realised that these drones had chips similar to computation devices like computers and mobile phones. As digital forensics help in solving cyber crimes, we got answers here too."

Punjab Police and BS are working together on the matter by deploying 200 soldiers to conduct "depth patrols" to lookfor drones.

(With inputs from agencies)

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