The Haryana Police has become the first police force in India to use drones to launch tear gas devices. The Haryana Police dropped tear gas shells from unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) on protesting farmers at Shambhu Barrier on the Punjab-Haryana boundary on Tuesday.
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The State government used drones made by Drone Imaging and Information Service of Haryana Limited (DRIISHYA), a public limited company incorporated in 2021, a police official told The Hindu. According to a Haryana government press release of April 4, 2023, the drones are designed for “surveying infrastructure projects, monitoring of agriculture and horticulture crops, and surveillance of sensitive areas for security purposes.” The company is located at Karnal.
The drone-based tear smoke launcher to control riots and for other crowd control situations was developed by the Tear Smoke Unit (TSU) of the Border Security Force (BSF) in 2022 but it has not been sold to any state police force yet.
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Officials said it is possible that Haryana procured the smoke launcher from a private vendor. The tear smoke canisters launched from the UAV or drone were however made at TSU in Tekanpur, Madhya Pradesh.
The DRISHYAA drone used by Haryana Police drop multiple grenades at a time as against pump guns which are loaded manually. The chances of injury from the debris of spent grenades is also minimal, the official said.
“The drones are capable of firing several munitions at one go. The launch is controlled by a remote. Sometimes when fired manually from pump guns the canisters are thrown back at the security forces causing injury,” said a senior government official.
Protestors said that coloured smoke canisters were also dropped. Rubber bullets were also used.