Close to three years of painstaking efforts and training have fructified for the Telangana Police after the eagles they had trained successfully pulled down drones in a demonstration held before top police officials recently.
Three eagles trained by two professionals were used for the first time by any police force across the country in the demonstration witnessed by Director General of Police Ravi Gupta along with senior IPS officers in the Integrated Intelligence Training Academy (IITA) at Moinabad on Hyderabad outskirts.
The occasion was 23rd batch of canines passing out parade at the IITA where the IPS officers complimented the trainers and IITA officials. A video of the demonstration shows an eagle sitting on a shed suddenly taking to skies and flying towards an object. In a split second, it grabs the object and flies back. The object is none other than a drone and the task was accomplished with precision.
Planned to be used for VVIP visits and public meetings, these eagles are capable of identifying drones and pulling them down before they can inflict any possible damage. Eagle squad is part of the Internal Security Wing (ISW), the highly specialised police force to oversee VVIP security in Telangana. Eagles is another layer of security the Telangana Police intend to add to their armour.
It was in July 2020 that the Telangana Police decided to experiment with the eagle squad. A letter from the Home department to the Finance department seeking funds for the project was approved, setting the pace for creating an exclusive squad. This is the first and only eagle squad in the country and second in the world only after the Netherlands.
Police sources said three eagle chicks of about three months’ age were first inducted into training. A local Hyderabadi Md. Fareed and another enthusiastic bird trainer Abir Bhandary from Kolkata were roped in for the project. In a span of little over two years, the eagles are now fully trained to handle an intruding drone.
Surveillance camera
While two eagles are aged about two years, the other is little over two years. Two eagles are trained to keep an eye on the objects, more particularly the drones, the other one is specifically tasked for surveillance purpose. The eagle is equipped with a surveillance camera and is capable of bringing high quality images of the targets.
Sustained training was given to the eagles for a duration of an hour every day and the success rate of interception is said to be very high, according to police officials associated with the project.
“This is at an experimental stage but we are sure to induct them into active service shortly to create a specialised squad to pull down rouge drones,” the sources revealed.
