IAF fighter brings down balloon shaped suspicious object in Barmer, Rajasthan; investigation underway

The suspicious object was spotted at around 10:30 - 11 AM by the IAF. Subsequently, the Air Force launched a fighter jet to bring it down.

Barmer, Jan 26: Indian Air Force (IAF) on Tuesday brought down a suspicious balloon shaped object flying in Rajasthan’s Barmer district which borders with Pakistan. There is no information so far whether it was a hostile object or whether any surveillance item was installed within it. However, IAF has alerted its unit active in on the Indo-Pakistan border in Rajasthan.

Barmer (Rajasthan):An IAF fighter was launched which intercepted the object & brought it down. Further investigation under progress,says IAF

— ANI (@ANI_news) January 26, 2016

The suspicious object was spotted at around 10:30 – 11 AM by the IAF. Subsequently, the Air Force launched a fighter jet to bring it down. Investigations are currently underway to ascertain the nature of the intercepted object.

In the past week, the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) issued an alert after six unidentified paragliders were off coast of Mumbai. Paragliding in Mumbai has been banned. According to nearest paragliding centre in Pune, no paragliders were authorized to head towards Mumbai at the time.

Security forces are monitoring the aerial route since apprehended terrorist Abu Jindal, linked to Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) revealed that the terror outfit is looking at the possibility of assaulting India through the aerial route. For the same purpose, they have also procured 50 paragliders from Europe to train their staff.