Pak drone spotted twice along border
Ravi Dhaliwal
Tribune News Service
Kalanaur (Gurdaspur), Dec 24
Hundreds of security personnel drawn from the BSF and three police districts of Gurdaspur, Batala and Pathankot went into an overdrive early today after a Pakistan drone was sighted twice within an hour in Chandu Wadala and Rosse BSF border outposts (BoPs) in Kalanaur subdivision.
The incident occurred between 1 am and 2 am following which senior officers of the BSF and Punjab Police made a dash for Kalanaur. Intelligence agencies have been informed about the infiltration attempt. This is the eighth time in the past three months that Pakistan has flown in drones into the border district.
BSF DIG (Gurdaspur sector) Rajesh Sharma said around 1 am, personnel of the 58th Battalion sighted and subsequently fired upon the drone, forcing it to fly back into Pakistan. An hour later, the security agencies again spotted the drone and opened fire. Sharma informed Gurdaspur SSP Rajinder Singh Sohal, following which a joint search operation was launched in 15 villages located near the International Border (IB). The villages were sealed.
Sohal said the search exercise could not be carried out at night because of poor visibility due to fog. “In the morning, we combed large tracts of agricultural land, including sugarcane fields,” he added. A senior officer said drone guns and sky fencing system might be pressed into service in the future to ward off such intrusions.
