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Updated 28 Oct, 2017 07:54am

Army says has shot down 'Indian' drone 'spying' across LoC

Pakistan Army said Friday evening they had shot down an 'Indian' quadcopter they suspected of 'spying' on the Rakhchikri sector of Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

From the pictures tweeted by the director general of Inter-Services Public Relations, the army's media wing, it seemed that the quadcopter being used was of the commercially available variety of drones.

The army said it had seized the wreckage, likely for analysis purposes.

The story followed the Foreign Office's (FO) weekly briefing earlier in the day, in which the FO spokesperson had criticised US plans to sell drones to India as part of a military deal.

FO Spokesman Nafees Zakaria said the balance of power in the region would be disrupted because of the deal, and that providing sensitive military technology to India was akin to incitement of its 'misadventures'.

The developement also recalls similar incidents in the past. In November last year, when Pakistan army had said it shot down a quadcopter, also in the Rakhchikri sector, suspected to be on an espionage mission.

Likewise, in 2015, the army had shot down a similar looking quadcopter in the Bhimber district of AJK in the month of July.

Earlier the same year, in May, a pigeon which had crossed the Indo-Pak border into India's Pathankot area had been captured and detained by the Indian military for being a 'suspected spy'.

A stamped message and a wire-like object on the 'intruder', which landed in the Manwal village situated four kilometers from the Indo-Pak border, raised suspicions of the security agencies in India. The bird was taken to a veterinary doctor where it was said to have been subjected to an x-ray and medical examination.

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