Union home secretary Ajay Kumar Bhalla on Tuesday held a high-level security meeting to review the security situation in the wake of the first-ever drone attack at an Indian Air Force (IAF) base in Jammu and Kashmir last month, people familiar with the development said. Tuesday’s meeting, aimed at firming up the counter-measures needed to neutralise the threat posed by small drones, or quadcopters, comes a day after the Union government sent a multi-agency team to Bengaluru for a special demonstration of the available anti-drone technology in the public and private sector, a government official said on condition of anonymity.
The Union home ministry hasn’t put out a statement on Bhalla’s meeting on Tuesday, which one official said, was part of the continuing effort by the security establishment to minimise the risk posed by the use of commercially available drones.
Among those who were part of Tuesday’s crucial meeting were J&K police chief Dilbag Singh, additional director general J&K police Mukesh Singh, Intelligence Bureau director Aravind Kumar and Central Industrial Security Force director general Sudhir Saxena.
Initial probe into the June 27 incident, in which two drones flew over the IAF base and dropped explosives, have led security agencies to suspect the role of the Lashkar-e-Taiba. A second official familiar with the matter said the two drones came from a village in Pakistan.