In a 1st, Bastar Maoists’ drone spies on forces

UAV found making sorties in September end

In a recent development, “Maoist drones” have been spotted hovering over camps of security forces set up in the remote areas of insurgency-hit Bastar in Chhattisgarh, alerting the intelligence agencies.

The development comes weeks after “rogue” drones were spotted dropping weapons and explosives in Punjab, leaving intelligence agencies in a tizzy.

An Unmanned Aerial Vehicle (UAV), popularly known as drone, has been found to make sorties in the night for three consecutive days over a camp of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) near Palodi under Kistaram police station in Sukma district of south Bastar in the last week of September, a senior officer of CRPF posted in Chhattisgarh disclosed to this newspaper on Friday.

“The UAV had been found making sorties over our camp opened in a forested area between Kistaram and Palodi consecutively for three days from September 25 between

seven- eleven in the night. Each sortie last five to seven minutes”, a spokesman of CRPF in Raipur confirmed to this newspaper.

According to him, this was the first time, Maoists have been found to be using drones to put security forces under surveillance in Bastar.

“It appears that the drone used by Maoists was a medium size one fitted with night vision cameras”, a CRPF officer said anonymously.

CRPF has alerted Intelligence Bureau (IB), State Intelligence Bureau (SIB) of Chhattisgarh police and National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) on the “disturbing” development.

The CRPF officer said the in-charge of the camp had spotted a “moving light” in the sky for the first time on September 25 at around 7.54 in the evening. It had reappeared in the nights of September 26 and 27.