Rai and Ganapathy were speaking at an event at Manesar in Haryana which was organised to celebrate the 37^th raising of the country’s elite counter-terrorism force.

“Drone warfare is a new challenge. We need to upgrade ourselves. We have done quite a bit and every security force needs to upgrade itself for counter-drone technology. Drones are an easy way to create mischief, to drop bombs and payload like weapons and ammunition,” Ganapathy said on the sidelines of the event.

His statement comes months after two drones dropped IEDs at the Jammu base of the Indian Air Force in February, which was the first instance of an attack being executed with the help of drones in India.

The drones were suspected to have been flown from across the border. For the past few years, drones, suspected to have been flown from Pakistan, have been regularly dropping arms, ammunition and drugs inside India.

MoS (Home) Nityanand Rai in his address stressed on the need to acquire the latest technology and expertise and developing internal capacity continuously.

“He expressed pleasure that NSG has over the years acquired latest weapons and state of the art equipment and is one of the best Counter Terrorism Forces in the world. He also lauded the contribution of NSG Hubs in capacity building and in conducting regular exercises with state police forces,” the NSG said in a statement.

Ganapathy in his address said that following the February incident at the Jammu air base, NSG personnel have been deployed at Jammu and Kashmir air bases to counter drone attacks and they are discharging their duties successfully.

“Counter-drone equipment, radar, jammers and drone kill guns have been inducted in the force to meet the challenge of the drone threats,” Ganapathy said.

On being asked if NSG would be undertaking operations in Jammu and Kashmir, Ganpathy said, “We have expertise for house intervention and anti-hijack operations. Once we are called, we will go. It essentially depends on the state government and forces operating on the ground to seek NSG.”

Ganapathy said that to improve the training of his men, shooting ranges have been established at Delhi, Manesar, Mumbai and Kolkata.

“Live grenades recovered by Delhi police and several tiffin bombs dropped by drones in Amritsar, Punjab have been diffused by NSG. Keeping in view the perspective of urban security, NSG in August completed the third exercise of the Gandiv series. The aim of this exercise is to give befitting reply to terrorists after establishing proper coordination between different agencies in case there are simultaneous attacks in various cities. We have conducted simultaneous exercises in cities such as Ahmedabad and Bhopal and mobilised forces from Delhi,” Ganapathy said.

He informed that NSG’s VIP protection unit provided security to to VIPs in 4,600 programmes in the past one year.

“It includes 260 public meetings and election rallies. We have also signed an MoU with the National Security University with the aim of using its research in the field of security and promoting Indian startups,” he said.