An upmarket society in Mumbai’s Andheri East, last month, sent an email to residents mentioning that the Mumbai Police Commissioner's office and the Drone Federation of India (DFI) would fly a drone in their society to enforce the nationwide lockdown. A resident of that very society was chosen by the DFI to fly the drone, and the email said that the exercise was a survey designed by DFI and Mumbai Police to spot locations where people are gathering in numbers despite the lockdown. “They will take action everyday,” the email, which MediaNama has seen a copy of, said. This raised concerns among one of the residents of the society who called this exercise invasive and told MediaNama, on the condition of anonymity, that drones could potentially hover in front of people’s living rooms. “People are appreciating the effort, but we hope that they’ll only fly the drone in common areas,” the person said. The DFI, a non-government, not-for-profit, industry-led body, along with Mumbai-based Sagar Defence Engineering, and DroneStark Technologies, has partnered with the Mumbai Police to deploy surveillance drones in the city, to keep an eye out on lockdown violators, and enforce the lockdown. Over 45 drones have been given the permission to dot the city’s skyline. When MediaNama called the Mumbai police commissioner’s office, they said that the entire exercise had been a huge success, and that they were able to scramble gatherings across the city on a number of occasions. The commissioner’s office also said that people shouldn’t…
