Indian Army's mini UAV falls into Pakistan territory after technical glitch, hotline message sent for return

Indian Army’s tactical drone “inadvertently” drifted into the Pakistan-0ccupied-Kashmir’s (PoK) Nakiyal sector, opposite Jammu & Kashmir’s Bhimber Gali (BG) sector on Friday morning.

Sources in the defence establishment said that the drone was recovered by the Pakistan Army soon after it fell there.

The incident took place at 9:25 am on Friday while carrying out a routine surveillance mission amidst increased terrorist infiltrations in the region in the recent past.

Sources said: “A mini UAV (Unmanned Aerial Vehicle) on a training mission well within Indian territory lost control due to ‘technical malfunction’ and drifted into Nikial sector of Pakistan, opposite our Bhimber Gali sector.”

The Indian Army has sent a hotline message to its Pakistani counterpart to return the UAV, they said.

It is pertinent to mention here that just a day ago the Indian Air Force fighter aircraft had “inadvertently” dropped air store near Pokharan in Rajasthan, which is barely 100-km away from Pakistan.   

In military parlance, an air store in fighter jets refers to anything attached to the aircraft or part of aircraft is called air store.

In March 2022, the Indian Air Force had “accidentally fired” a supersonic BrahMos missile into Pakistan. India had then attributed the incident to a technical malfunction during routine maintenance.