At a time when terrorists across the borders are shifting to new-age warfare using drones, the threat to India’s security is the utmost priority for the central government.
In a major step towards this direction, the Kerala Police launched the country’s ‘first-of-its-kind’ Drone Forensic Lab & Research Centre to boost surveillance of terrorist activities and anti-India elements.
“Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan inaugurated the centre. This lab-cum-research centre will look into both utility and threat aspects of a drone. It’s a public-private partnership initiative,” ADGP Manoj Abraham said.
The decision to come up with such a facility was conceptualised in early July after a slew of attacks in Jammu and Kashmir using unmanned aerial vehicles by Pakistan-based terrorists.
“While analyzing a drone at the research centre, we’ll look into its origin, see its utility value such as using it for policing and devising anti-drone mechanisms to check its misuse as we saw in the case of drone activities at the borders,” the Thiruvananthapuram ADGP said.
Kerala Director General of Police Anil Kant had on July 2 for the first time informed that the state police force would soon set up the laboratory under the guidance of the Centre.
“We will set up a drone research laboratory to address the security threats. The research lab will be developed with the help of Cyberdome of the Kerala police. We will also consider collaborating with the Union government in the research sector,” Kant had said.
Cyberdome is a tech research and development centre set up by the Kerala Police, conceived as a Cyber Centre of Excellence in Cyber Security and for the augmentation of technology for effective policing.
