The Hindu : UAVs: Centre to consider AP request

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jan 10, 2003

Southern States

Southern States - Andhra Pradesh-Hyderabad

UAVs: Centre to consider AP request

By Our Special Correspondent

HYDERABAD Jan. 9. Andhra Pradesh has once again put forth its argument for equipping its police force with Unmanned Air Vehicles (UAVs) to check extremist activity and the Centre has agreed to consider the proposal favourably.

This assurance was extracted from the Deputy Prime Minister, L.K. Advani, by the Andhra Pradesh DGP, P. Ramulu, at the meeting of DGPs and Chief Secretaries convened by the Centre in Delhi two days ago.

Though the request for acquiring UAVs had been pending with the Centre for a long time, the rapid spread of left wing extremist activity in different States could have made the Centre react positively to the plea.

A team of Andhra Pradesh police officers who visited Israel last year were given a demo of the functioning of the UAVs and the team felt that they could be put to best use to track down extremists operating in forest areas in the State. Each UAV is expected to cost about Rs 1.5 crore.

The other suggestion made by Mr. Ramulu at the meeting that the Centre should immediately ban production and sale of gelatine also evoked a positive response from the Centre. It was explained to the meeting that slurry explosives were the best explosives to be used in coal mining and in other legal works. In what is called `site mixed slurry system', chemicals which are essentially in a semi-solid state are kept separately and only after mixing two or three ingredients in correct proportion, the slurry becomes explosive.

Currently, gelatine is extensively used by naxalites in landmines and claymore mines to attack foot and mobile patrols. "If only gelatine production is stopped and slurry system introduced, it would effectively check all the mining incidents,'' senior police officers say. Similarly, Andhra Pradesh also requested the Centre to make it compulsory for detonator manufacturers to delay the explosion of the charge in detonators. Presently, the detonator explodes within three seconds and the State wanted the timing to be enhanced to five seconds or more.

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