NEW DELHI: In an attempt to minimise casualties and collateral damage, Indian Army plans to acquire hand-held radars to detect militants hiding in houses in Jammu and Kashmir during counter insurgency operations. At least two “through the wall” radars will be inducted in a short time followed by 40 more such devices.
Official sources said these radars mounted on tripods can see movement or an image behind the wall from a range of 50 to 70 metres and cost Rs 60 lakh each. The radars will come from Israel and US. The Army will procure them through the Army commander’s discretionary fund.
An Army official said that these wall radars are capable of capturing signature or silhouette of a human body apart from body heat or breath via electromagnetic rays and will help to ferret out militants from hideouts.
“These hideouts built within houses in several parts of Jammu and Kashmir, especially in heavily-populated districts” are virtually undetectable. In fact, some of the hideouts can accommodate three to four militants in cramped places for hours together even as security forces are trying to locate their presence,” officials said.
Officials said that in the past few months several hideouts had been constructed by terror sympathisers.