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India Has Pepper Spray Drones for Riot-Control

posted by mrcoolbp on Friday April 10 2015, @03:46AM   Printer-friendly
from the because-drones dept.

tonyPick writes:

Over at Crazy Engineers is a report that Police in the northern Indian city of Lucknow, in the state of Uttar Pradesh, plan to use pepperspray-equipped drones for riot control:

The Lucknow Police Senior Superintendent has informed the media that they have acquired five drones that are able to pepper spray unruly crowds. These drones cost Rs 6 lakh each and have a range of one kilometre. These drones are able to carry payloads of two kilograms and can fly up to a height of 600 meters. This isn’t the first time the authorities have deployed drones in the state. Previously the state government had hired surveillance drones during important religious and national festivals. The authorities were impressed by their capabilities and decided to buy them instead of hiring them for a fee.

The cost quoted is 600,000 Rupees, or about $9,600 (USD) per drone.

Additional coverage at engadget, Yahoo News and The Telegraph.

 
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  • (Score: 2) by c0lo on Friday April 10 2015, @05:43AM

    by c0lo (156) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 10 2015, @05:43AM (#168640) Journal

    The cost quoted is 600,000 Rupees, or about $9,600 (USD) per drone.

    I suspect the police of various places will see this as a value proposition (will Ferguson police be the first?)

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  • (Score: 2, Interesting) by number11 on Friday April 10 2015, @02:58PM

    by number11 (1170) Subscriber Badge on Friday April 10 2015, @02:58PM (#168756)

    The cost quoted is 600,000 Rupees, or about $9,600 (USD) per drone.

    I suspect the police of various places will see this as a value proposition (will Ferguson police be the first?)

    The drone will have to fly fairly low to avoid overspray to a large area. I wonder if you could take such a drone out with a slingshot. Or easily jam its C&C with a radio transmitter and a directional antenna. (It's probably too much to hope that protesters could actually take control of it and turn it back against its owners.)