New Delhi, March 20 The Border Security Force (BSF) on Sunday said that it is probing if the Chinese drone found in a farm field along the India-Bangladesh frontier in West Bengal's North 24 Parganas district was being used for trans-border crimes.
Officials of the BSF's South Bengal Frontier command said that a farmer from Purbapara, a village adjacent to the BSF border post Kalyani in North 24 Parganas, found a broken China-made drone in a field near the India-Bangladesh border, after which BSF security has been beefed up.
The drone was found by the farmer early on March 19 in a field just 300 metres away from the international border, the officials said.
The farmer picked up the broken drone and handed it over to the officials of the local Petrapole police station, they said.
After the recovery of the drone was reported, a BSF team from Kalyani post visited the spot to find out more evidence but they could not find anything and the matter was reported to the local police.
The BSF officials from the South Bengal Frontier said that the officials from the Kalyani post also enquired in the nearby villages to get more information about the drone.
They also said that while central security agencies like the BSF and others, deployed along India's western border along Pakistan, have been battling with the emerging threat of drones carrying arms, ammunition and drugs or undertaking surveillance, this was probably the first time when a drone was found along the eastern border with Bangladesh.
The BSF guards a total of 4,096 km of the India-Bangladesh border of which West Bengal comprises 2,217 km.
The BSF's South Bengal Frontier is responsible for 913 km in the state and this is marked by multiple riverine bodies, the mangrove area in Sunderbans and other difficult terrain areas.
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