Improve Technology to Detect IEDs
Context:
- On April 26, an improvised explosive device (IED) detonated in Dantewada, Chhattisgarh, killing ten jawans and a civilian driver who were returning in a van from an anti-Maoist operation. The use of IEDs and how to deal with them at many levels — the government, business, Maoists, and security personnel — is the bigger issue here.
IED details:
- Unconventional explosive weapons like IEDs can be used in a variety of ways and can take on any shape. They are among the oldest categories of weapons in existence.
- An improvised explosive device (IED) is a bomb that contains poisonous, deadly, noxious, pyrotechnic, or incendiary substances and is intended to kill or disable people or vehicles.
- IEDs can be activated in a number of ways, such as through remote control, infrared, magnetic, pressure-sensitive bars, or trip wires (controlled by the victim).
- IEDs can sometimes be linked together in a daisy chain to strike a queue of cars travelling together along a road.
IED detection limitations:
- There are limitations to the technological tools employed by the security services to find IEDs. Mine detectors may not detect an IED if it contains little metal or if it is buried far beneath the road.
- Because it is prone to producing false alarms, ground-penetrating radar—which can identify recent disturbances in the subsurface of the soil—has likewise not been effective.
- Since little research and development has been done in this area, industry and the central government must work together to advance IED detection technology.
- Additionally, the information displayed on the boxes that contain detonators is insufficient to identify the source of the devices and punish those responsible. Therefore, rules must be changed and producers held responsible for detonator unique identification by the central government.
Regulation:
- India is a party to the Geneva and Hague Conventions, which control the methods used in combat to reduce casualties.
- Because landmines are non-discriminatory, imprecise, and cause unnecessary or excessive suffering, they are prohibited worldwide, and the Maoists blatantly violate these regulations.
Taking on the problem:
- India needs to bring up the Maoists’ use of IEDs in the proper international forums to push them to abide by international humanitarian law and stop using them.
- The Maoists’ technical division appears to have gradually created the means to remotely detonate IEDs. Drones and other forms of technology may be helpful in detecting suspicious movement, but security officers’ techniques also need to be improved.
- Since the Maoists have also destroyed mine-protected cars in the past, it is important to only allow the usage of vehicles after clearing the road of IEDs and ambushes.
- putting in place more stringent regulations for the distribution and sale of explosive materials
- To check for the existence of suspicious objects or wire ends, a cautious visual search must be conducted up to roughly 100 to 150 metres deep on both sides of the road.
- Every effort must be taken to find, neutralise, or steer clear of these vicious gadgets.
Conclusion:
- India must enact strict legislation and preventive measures to deal with the current chaos caused by IEDs given that many people, including children and animals, have also been victims of IED assaults in addition to the security personnel.
