Drone attacks probe shows Pakistan ordnance factory was involved: Top cop

THE attacks conducted at an Indian Air Force base in Jammu airport with the help of drones in June have added a new dimension to security threats from terror groups and investigations into the incident have seen involvement of “non-state actors” like ordnance factory of Pakistan backed by state actors.

Jammu and Kashmir director general of police Dilbagh Singh said this on Tuesday (20) and added that in the past, drones from across the border have been used to drop currency, arms and ammunition inside the Indian territory and with the coming of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) in terror activities, more efforts are needed to address this challenge.

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Speaking in an interview, Singh focused on the new threats that have emerged with the use of drones by terror outfits like the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba.

“Drones have come recently, say in September last year. First, that came as a big surprise, but we were able to gear up our resources to counter that threat. I am happy to report that in cases of use of drones carrying weapons and narcotics and other explosives... our security grid, intelligence grid of police and security agencies, was very effective in taking countermeasures,” the top police official said.

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“We were able to intercept around 32 sorties out of roughly 40 sorties which were made," Singh said.

However, what happened during the intervening night of June 26 and 27 at the air force station where drones were used to drop improvised explosive devices (IEDs), was “a very condemnable incident and very wrong kind of doing on the part of non-state actors (terror groups) who are likely to have been supported by state actors (Pakistan army or ISI),” he said.

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“Picking up this kind of a target has added a new dimension to our security threats from terrorists. We have taken countermeasures. Certain additional technologies have been deployed along the border. We are trying to take extra precaution with regard to vital installations,” he added.

When asked about the investigations into the drone attack on the IAF station in Jammu, Singh said the probe suggests a couple of things. For example, the flight path of the drones suggest they came from Pakistan right to the airfield and the aerial distance from the IAF station to the international border is 14 kilometres.

The second and most important part that emerged during the investigation, was that expert opinion “suggested that the IEDs may have been fabricated by a well organised unit like an ordnance unit...it suggested certain footprints of an ordnance unit so that kind of assessment was there.” Singh said.

The explosive material is not available in open market

Moreover, the explosive material which was used in the IEDs was RDX and this is not available in the open market. It is a military-grade explosive material and it must have been sourced from a government agency from across the border, Singh said.

IEDs, weighing around six to seven kilograms, which were seized on the same day of the air force base attack from another part of Jammu, had also been dropped from a drone and collected by a terrorist who was later arrested, the DGP said.

The LeT terror has been using drones for dropping weapons, drugs and money on a regular basis, he said. “This act (attack on Jammu IAF station) also seems to have certain signatures of the LeT... certain indications like the kind of explosives used and nature of the explosive and nature of fabrication, definitely suggested that apart from non-state actors, state actors also must have been involved in the process,” Singh said.