J&K authorities ban use, possession & transport of drones in Srinagar

Authorities in Jammu and Kashmir's Srinagar district on Sunday banned storage, sale, possession, use and transport of unmanned aerial vehicles.

An order issued by Mohammad Aijaz, District Magistrate Srinagar, said, "To secure aerial space near vital installations and highly populated areas it is imperative to discontinue the use of drones in all social and cultural gatherings to eliminate any risk of injury to life and damage to property".

The order has been issued under section 144 of CrPc. The order says decentralised air space access has to be regulated in view of the recent incidents of misuse of drones posing threat to security infrastructure as reported by the media and other reliable sources.

"Directorate general of civil aviation has provided draft guidelines/standard operating protocol to regulate the use of drones in terms of weight classification, generation of unique identification number, height/altitude restrictions, speed restrictions, enforcement/panel action, etc.", the order said.

The order says government departments using drones for mapping, surveys and surveillance in agricultural, environmental conservation and disaster mitigation sector shall inform the local police station before undertaking any such activity in public interest.

The order comes days after two explosives-laden drones crashed into the high-security Indian Air Force station at Jammu airport in the intervening night of June 26-27.

Two IAF personnel were injured in the explosions that took place around 1.40 am within six minutes of each other. The first blast ripped off the roof of a single-storey building at the technical area of the airport manned by the IAF in Satwari area of the city. The second one was on the ground, the officials said.

Jammu and Kashmir Director General of Police Dilbag Singh had said that the explosive-laden drones were operated by people near the attack site.