Pak using ‘thermal suits’ to dodge night-vision devices

New Delhi, May 22

Security agencies have flagged a new strategy of Pakistan personnel wearing “thermal camouflage suits” to avoid detection by Indian night-vision devices, a design adopted by them to kill a BSF man along the border in Jammu and Kashmir amid the recent spate of ceasefire violations.

The “disturbing” first-time instance, officials said quoting an electronic surveillance report, has rattled the top commanders responsible for ensuring security along the International Border and the unfenced Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

Constable Sitaram Yadav (28) of the 192nd battalion of the Border Security Force, manning a forward post along the IB in the RS Pora region, was shot with a precise close-range aim either by a militant or a special service group (SSG) trooper around 1.30 am on May 18, they said.

Official sources said grievously injured Yadav was evacuated by two other BSF men present in a nearby post but he later succumbed to his bullet wound that he took in his left eye.

The BSF commanders initially believed the constable was killed by sniper fire from across the border. However, a close scrutiny of the local hand-held thermal imager (HHTI) showed that a grained black shadow-like movement takes place on the monitor and it comes very close to the BSF post and fires a shot, that is suspected to have hit the jawan leading to his killing, they said.

The worry is that the HHTI, deployed in the border areas for night vision and surveillance, could not clearly pick up the black shadow of an approaching man as he might be wearing a “thermal camouflage suit” that insulates the body heat of a person, they said.

The HHTI picks up body heat signatures of a living being — a human or an animal — and creates a silhouette that helps the security forces to check infiltration bids and attacks on their posts in the dead of the night.

“The electronic surveillance of the incident is being analysed and nothing can be ruled out. It could be a new camouflage overall that the Pakistan side is using to take a close aim and hit Indian troops at the border or it could also be an indigenous way of wearing a wet-sack like clothing to evade the HHTI radar,” a senior officer in the security establishment said.

He added that this “menacing stealth operation” carried out either by militants, the SSG or Pak regulars was worrying and was being investigated.

Commanders rattled 

• The first-time use of “thermal camouflage suits” has rattled the top commanders responsible for ensuring security along the International Border and Line of Control
• BSF commanders initially believed the constable was killed by sniper fire from across the border. However, a close scrutiny of the local hand-held thermal imager showed that a grained black shadow-like movement takes place on the monitor and it comes very close to the BSF post and fires a shot, that is suspected to have hit the jawan leading to his killing, they said — PTI