New police wing to clear city skies of illegal drones

KOCHI: The Kochi city police will soon set up a wing to counter the menace of illegal drones dotting the skies mainly in areas where vital installations are located. As per the details available, senior police officials are in discussion with stakeholders concerned to equip a police team in the city with state-of-the-art anti-drone guns which will be used to gun down unmanned aerial vehicles that fly without necessary permission.

Kochi City Police Commissioner Nagaraju Chakilam told TNIE that plans are afoot to procure anti-drone guns for the police for strengthening security of vital installations situated in city police limits. “We have made a suggestion to the authorities of the vital installations in the city to procure anti-drone guns on their own.

The police will also provide necessary training to their personnel on using it,” he said, adding that such guns were recently deployed in the city during Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s visit to Kochi. The anti-drone guns will exclusively be used to strengthen security in and around vital installations like Cochin Shipyard, BPCL-Kochi Refineries and Port. In the wake of repeated incidents of spotting of illegal drones in the sky, anti-drone guns have become a necessary equipment for police to check such activities.

The Union ministry of defence (MoD) and ministry of home Affairs (MHA) had stressed the need for the hi-tech anti-drone system for security agencies to deal with illegal drone menace. The Indian Air Force and Army have already deployed anti-drone units in areas bordering Pakistan to shoot down drones that fly in from across the border for recce.

Despite the Centre formulating rules for flying drones and making online registration mandatory on Digital Sky website to fly a drone, many continue to illegally fly drones in and around restricted zones.
A training from Remote Pilot Training Organisation is a must to fly a drone. Though a majority of illegal drones are in the category of nano drone weighing below 250g and micro drone that weighs less than 2kg, police officials say these drones are enough to capture sensitive images of the restricted zones. The hand-held anti-drone guns jams the frequency in which the drone is being controlled using a remote operating device and neutralise it.