J&K: Drone carrying 5 kg ‘ready to use’ IED material shot down

The development comes two days before President Ram Nath Kovind’s scheduled three-day visit to the Union Territories of J&K and Ladakh, beginning July 25.

According to ADGP Singh, a UT police team laid ambush following inputs that the militant group Jaish-e-Mohammad was to drop a payload through a drone near Akhnoor. Around 1 am, the team sighted a drone and opened fire when it came down to drop the payload, Singh said.

This is the second drone carrying weapons shot shot down by police in Jammu region since last year — in June last year, a similar flying machine carrying weapons was brought down in Kathua’s Hiranagar.

The drone downed on Friday had a flight controller and GPS, and there was a difference of only one digit in the flight controller of this one and the drone brought down in Hiranagar last year, he said. Singh said terror outfits operating from across the border appear to have bought many flight controllers of the same series and are using them in different drones being sent to the Indian side.

Preliminary analysis of the drone revealed that the payload is dropped from it through a string. The string found with the drone shot down on Friday was similar to the one seized near the crater caused on the roof of an IAF station building last month, Singh said. This means explosive devices at the IAF station were also dropped through drone, he added. J&K DGP Dilbag Singh said frequency of drone activity has increased in the Kathua and Akhnoor sector over the last eight months. “This is a new kind of threat. Countermeasures have been taken at all vital installations.”

With inputs from ENS, Srinagar