Army to buy 850 kamikaze drones for Rs 2,000 cr

New Delhi: As part of lessons learnt from Operation Sindoor, the Indian Army is all set to buy 850 kamikaze drones, which will be used to equip all three defence forces and the special forces.The Indian Army proposal is at an advanced stage of acquisition. It is likely to be cleared soon by a high-level meeting of the Defence Acquisition Council scheduled to be held in the last week of this month, Defence sources informed ANI.As per the proposal to be implemented under the fast-track procedures by the force, the Army will get around 850 loitering munitions along with launchers from indigenous sources, they said.The Indian Army uses a large number of loitering munitions acquired from different sources and is now looking to induct around 30,000 of them in the near future to equip all its fighting forces, they said.The Army infantry battalions will now have one Ashni platoon each, which will be responsible for operating drones to be used against enemy locations and also in counterinsurgency roles, they said. The Indian Army heavily utilised drones to target terror headquarters inside Pakistan during Operation Sidoor. India took out seven of the nine terrorist targets on the first day of the operation, which was conducted in retaliation for the Pahalgam terror attack in which 26 people were killed. Later on, the drones were also used against the Pakistan Army, which came out strongly to defend the terrorists backed by it.The number of casualties in Army strikes was very high and caused heavy damage to the enemy infrastructure on the borders, they said.