More raptors inducted into Garuda squad of Telangana Police

Telangana Police boosts of a squad comprising eagles, kites and falcon that are used for anti-drone security measures and surveillance purpose

Hyderabad: More number of raptors such as eagles, kites and falcons are being inducted into the Garuda squad of Telangana Police and are getting trained at the Integrated Intelligence Training Academy (IITA), Moinabad.

The Telangana Police boosts of a Garuda squad comprising eagles, kites and falcon that are used for anti-drone security measures and surveillance purpose. The squad was formed at the IITA Moinabad, and experts hired by the Telangana Police trained two eagles, a kite and two falcons in anti-drone operations and surveillance.

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The need to train the eagles was felt in view of the rising threat of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) during VVIP and VIP visits to various programmes in the State. The Telangana Police are the first in the country to introduce such squad and stands second in the world after Netherlands to actively maintain and deploy the raptors for security purpose.

After successfully training five birds in anti-drone and surveillance duties the IITA officials are training a few more birds at the academy in security exercises.

“A few more chicks were brought and are being trained for various duties. The already trained birds are deployed wherever necessary but so far they did not engaged in any counter drone exercise during any programme,” said an official on condition of anonymity.

The Telangana Police officials maintained that enough precautions are taken to prevent any injury to the birds during the training and deployment. “We tie a net to the legs of the birds. When it reaches a drone, the net traps the wings of the drone and carries the drone away to a secluded place to neutralise it,” said the official.

The Telangana Police are training the birds for surveillance duties as well. A high definition small camera connected to a laptop is used for surveillance purpose and mostly kites are trained for surveillance assignments, officials maintained.