The Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs), commonly known as drone cameras are becoming more significant in maintaining the law and order situation during large gatherings as authorities gave credence to the use of this technology for peaceful observance of Ashura across the country.
Senior officials of the Law Enforcement Agencies while talking to Business Recorder, here on Thursday said that the drone cameras will be used by the police for monitoring and surveillance especially during protests beside their use in tracking of terrorists and armed bandits in urban areas. Drone cameras are important during police operations to get real-time information about criminal gangs before launching an operation in an area, they added.
They said the drone surveillance is cheaper method for data collection, information and it has a number of other key advantages for Law Enforcement Agencies as it can enter into narrow and confined spaces, produce minimal noise and can be equipped with night vision cameras too. At present, Capital police, Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh police have been equipped with drones and Government of Balochistan has also decided to acquire drone cameras for the police, the officials said.
They said that for the first time the Islamabad, Sindh, Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police used such technological support for surveillance of Muharram processions which proved quite effective. According to a senior official of the Sindh Police, the provincial police have acquired six drone cameras of 25-megapixel high-definition cameras. These six drones acquired by the Sindh police can fly for 45 minutes at a stretch up to 2,000 meters and can cover footage and photographs of around 10-kilometre area, he added.
They further said the Punjab police have acquired 50 drone cameras and they can fly for 25 minutes at a speed of 15 meters per second and capture visuals from a height of up to 60 meters. Khyber Pakhtunkhwa police have acquired eight DJI Phantom-4 drone cameras with 12-megapixel cameras which can fly for 28 minutes at a speed of 72 kmph. A senior official of the Islamabad police said that the city police have arranged a private Drone Camera on trial basis for surveillance and monitoring of this year Muharram processions.
"It gave a significant help to the police and now police would use drone cameras, which we have in the Islamabad Safe City Project, for monitoring of different events like protest rallies and other gatherings in the federal capital", the official added.