By Luke Edwards for Pocket Lint
"Weaponised drones with pepper spray to be used by Indian police
Drones are becoming more and more useful at assisting people - the latest team to be supported by them is the riot police.
Police in the northern Indian city of Lucknow have bought several weaponised drones capable of deploying pepper spray.
The drones cost the equivalent of around £6,500. The city's police force have purchased five. The plan is to introduce them later this month for use in crowd control situations where police would otherwise be at risk.
The drones are equipped with high-resolution cameras and can carry up to 2kg of pepper. They have a range of one kilometre and can fly at various heights to accurately disperse the pepper spray and, consequently, crowds.
The worry with this sort of step is that the detachment of controlling a drone may leave the officer flying it without a clear picture of who's causing trouble. The result could be innocent people being pepper sprayed or caught in the cross-fire.
According to Yashasvi Yadav, police chief of Lucknow, "The results were brilliant. We have managed to work out how to use it to precisely target the mob in winds and congested areas. Pepper is non-lethal but very effective in mob control. We can spray from different heights to have maximum results."
Lucknow sees daily peaceful protests on a range of issues with some turning to violence. These drones may help to stop violent outbursts simply by being in the area, it is hoped."
Well we shall see how it works out. It looks like drones are going to become part of everyday life in the not to distant future.
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