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Forces on alert amid more drone sightings in Jammu
“The army informed us that they spotted drones over Kaluchak, Ratnuchak and Sunjuwan early Tuesday. We are looking into it,” Jammu’s senior superintendent of police Chandan Kohli said. This is the third straight day that security forces have spotted drones near military installations.
JAMMU: Three army teams reported drone sightings near military installations in Jammu between 1am and 4.30am on Tuesday, an indication that terrorist groups could be trying to replicate Sunday’s drone strike at the Jammu air force station.
“The army informed us that they spotted drones over Kaluchak, Ratnuchak and Sunjuwan early Tuesday. We are looking into it,” Jammu’s senior superintendent of police Chandan Kohli said. This is the third straight day that security forces have spotted drones near military installations.
The first sighting on Tuesday was reported at 1.08am at Ratnuchak. Two hours later, military personnel at Kaluchak camp 300 metres away spotted the drone at 3.09am and finally at 4.19am, a drone was spotted near Sunjuwan, seven km away. Kaluchak and Ratnuchak are smaller military stations.
The Sunjuwan military station, the largest of the three, was the target of a pre-dawn attack on 10 February 2018 carried out by Jaish-e-Mohammed terrorists. Six soldiers and a civilian were killed in this attack. The Kaluchak military station was attacked by terrorists on May 14, 2002 who hijacked a state roadways bus and used it to storm into the camp.
A six-member team of Delhi Police officers has also reached Jammu to analyse the threat posed by the drones. “The team has come to be part of the probe and at the same time analyse the modus-operandi of the terrorists because Delhi is the capital and is densely populated ,” a person familiar with the development said, reflecting the concern that terrorists could next use drones to carry out attacks in cities like Delhi too.
The use of a small drone to carry out attacks is counted by security analysts as a watershed in asymmetric warfare in India. But it has been used elsewhere, by Islamic State fighters for one, to target forces in Iraq and Syria for years that prompted the United States and drone manufacturers to spend millions of dollars on research to stop what are sometimes called, the “killer bees”.
As reported by HT on 20 October 2020, India’s intelligence community did warn that terror groups based in Pakistan were attempting to replicate the IS successes in use of cheap drones to carry out small bomb attacks.
Initial investigations into Sunday’s attack have pointed to the role of Pakistan-based Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) in the drone strike at a Jammu air force station. Two Indian Air Force personnel were injured in the explosions that took place within six minutes of each other on Sunday. The first blast ripped off the roof of a single-storey building at the high security technical area of the airport manned by the IAF in Satwari area on the outskirts of the city.
Jammu and Kashmir police chief Dilbag Singh confirmed suspicions about the involvement of the Pakistan-based LeT. “The same group may also be behind the drones spotted near a military facility on Monday”, Singh told private news channel NDTV..
