China-made drones new ‘terror toys’ on LoC, IB

Heavy snow is no barrier for easily-available and cheap drones with payloads of weapons and drugs from across the border with Pakistan and could be a new security headache this winter, writes senior journalist Sanjib Kr Baruah.

New Delhi: Posing a new challenge to Indian security forces and the military, ‘made-in-China’ commercial drones have added a new dimension to the terror architecture nurtured by the Pakistani deep state from across the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB).

Usually smuggling in weapons and drugs in the border stretch along Jammu and Kashmir would stop with the onset of winter due to heavy snow in the higher reaches with many areas witnessing even 40-50 feet of snow.

But with drones now, snow is no obstacle for gun-dropping operations in Kashmir. It has raised the spectre of the availability of more weapons and also drug consignments the proceeds of which are used to fund the militancy movement.

With the ongoing counter-insurgency offensive, militants in Kashmir have been running short of weapons, ammunition and other war-like stores besides funds.

Of late, the use of drones in transporting weapons, smuggling in drugs and helping with the logistics to aid the infiltration of terrorists from across the border has noticeably increased.

These ‘hexacopter’ drones are found freely in the open market and can be bought off-the-shelf.

Each of these drones can carry several guns in a single weapons-dropping operation or several kg of drugs besides pinpointing the deployment of Indian troops or in determining the border security grid in place through fixed high-resolution cameras—vital information for a terrorist trying to infiltrate over to India.

The indication that this has possibly led to the bigger insertion of war-like stores and drugs is usually known by the number and size of recoveries and seizures.

An official source reeled out the numbers to ETV Bharat: “While last year there were isolated incidents of weapons being caught along the LoC/ IB, this year till 18 November, two Chinese origin rifles, three M14 / M16 Rifles, 46 AK series and 58 pistols have been caught by security forces.”

“These weapons are in addition to the weapons recovered from terrorists who were neutralised while trying to infiltrate.”

“This year eight infiltration bids have been eliminated and 14 terrorists have been neutralised along the LoC. Quite evidently, terrorist training camps thrive in Pakistan, though post-Indian intent displayed during Balakote, Pakistan has secretly guarded the location of these camps.”

“This year 80 kg of drugs have been recovered along IB and 10 kg along the LoC,” the source added.

Drugs largely comprise brown sugar and heroin that has been traditionally sourced from Afghanistan where 84 per cent of the world’s opium is produced.

The IB is about 190 km long in Jammu while the LoC is about 860 km long across the Union territory of Jammu and Kashmir and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.