A drone being used by the police in Jahangirpuri.
| Photo Credit: FILE PHOTO
Having hired drones for maintaining law and order and identifying suspects in riot-hit areas since 2014, the Delhi Police will now procure its own custom-built unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) from private vendors, sources said.
“So far, we have either hired drones from wedding organisers or private companies. Based on the requirements, it was decided to get drones fitted with particular specifications such as night-vision cameras and quicker backup, among others. Tenders will be floated for procurement after the Commissioner’s approval,” a senior police officer told Today News 24. He added that DCPs across districts were in the past allowed to rent drones from private vendors as per their requirement.
“Earlier, we used to rent a drone at a specific cost on an assignment basis and then return it accordingly. Observing the need to encourage this technology which has helped us manage crowds better, especially during mob violence, we have decided to procure our own drones,” the officer said, adding that all district-level officers will undergo training to use them.
Introduced in 2014 during the Trilokpuri riots, the police have used drones on several occasions, including during the 2019 anti-CAA protests, the north-east Delhi riots in 2020 and the Jahangirpuri violence this year.
“It was also extensively used to enforce Covid-necessitated restrictions,” an officer said.
Eye in the sky
Special Commissioner of Police (Law and Order, Zone 1) Dependra Pathak said while there are chances of CCTVs being manipulated, a drone hovering above the place of incident “deters the person from committing the crime”. “CCTVs can either be broken or covered using a cloth but a drone provides a bird’s eye view without any scope for manipulation. Drone footage in the form of electronic evidence provides a better perspective of the crime scene,” he said.
However, the use of drones by the police have raised concerns over invasion of privacy from various quarters. Anushka Jain, Policy Counsel at the Internet Freedom Foundation, said the use of drones without a defined standard operating protocol has magnified safety concerns. “Footage can be accessed by private vendors and can even be manipulated by police for their own purpose,” she said. The police, however, claimed they abide by all regulations.
