Two blasts, within a gap of 5 minutes and a radius of 1 Km, rocked the highly secured technical area of the Indian Air Force (IAF) Station in Jammu on the intervening night of 26-27 June. The first blast exploded off the roof of a building at 1:37 am while the second one, of weaker intensity, dropped in an open area at 1:42 am. The explosions are suspected to be the first drone attack on any defence establishment in India.

A bomb disposal squad along with forensic experts rushed to the site immediately after hearing the two blasts. NSG’s Bomb Data Team and an NIA (National Investigation Agency) team are on their way to the Air Force Station to look into the matter. According to a person who saw the developments, the first blast created a hole in the rooftop of the building indicating the use of “an adequate amount of explosives. The speculations of a drone strike are rife.

The Indian Air Force (IAF) has tweeted and confirmed the incident. The tweet read, “Two low-intensity explosions were reported early Sunday morning in the technical area of Jammu Air Force Station. One caused minor damage to the roof of a building while the other exploded in an open area. There was no damage to any equipment. Investigation is in progress along with civil agencies.”

An IAF patrol team has seen ammunition being dropped, giving more air to a suspected drone attack. However, the authorities have said that it will be too early to draw any conclusions as no drone was detected by radar. In fact, the Jammu and Kashmir police are treating it as a terror case and have detained two persons for interrogation. Detection of drones is a complicated task and can be done using three methods  RF-monitoring, Radar and/or Optical Sensors (Cameras). All of these have their own limitations. Teams are working on detecting any possible drone used in the incident.

Top sources have revealed, “A drone seems to have been used to drop improvised explosive devices (IEDs). This was not on the periphery, but near the helipad area. The possible target of the attacks was the aircraft parked in the dispersal area.”

The India-Pakistan border is 14 Km away from the Air force station and there have been reports of Pakistan using drones to drop weapons, arms, drugs, Hawala money etc in border areas of Jammu and Kashmir so as to propagate terrorism in the region. Defence minister Rajnath Singh is presently at Leh in Ladakh to look into the security scenario of the country.