Menace in the sky: UP villagers chase drones with sticks & stones
BIJNOR: Just before dusk on Friday, a drone swooped low over Bulandshahr District Jail, hovered for several seconds, shifted its angle, and turned back. Within hours, aerial footage of the compound surfaced on social media.
By Saturday morning, the pilot was arrested, the drone seized, and police had filed charges for unauthorised flying and filming inside a protected no-fly, no-photography zone.
Bhupendra Singh, 25, has been charged under sections 223 (breach of peace) and 351(1) (acts endangering safety) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, along with provisions of the IT Act, Prison Act, and Criminal Law (Amendment) Act. Though Singh's case appears procedural — cops say he's been identified as source of the footage — there is growing unease in the region.
What the law says
The sky, once carrying birds, now feels crowded. As night falls & power lines flicker, residents climb rooftops with torches, keeping watch for hours. Across villages in UP, people have begun mounting rooftop vigils, chasing away low-flying drones with torches, stones, and sharpened sticks as sightings multiply and suspicion deepens. For several nights before the jail airspace was breached, 'strange lights' were spotted drifting across districts encircling Bulandshahr — Bijnor, Moradabad, and Amroha.
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Over rooftops and farms, between mango orchards and grain silos, blinking red and blue as they swept silently across villages after sundown.
No one knew who operated them, but everyone noticed. In Syohara (Bijnor), torches burned till dawn. In Chhajlat (Moradabad), someone fired a shot skyward. In Bukharipur, an e-rickshaw battery went missing hours after a drone was seen hovering overhead. In Dhabarsi and Ogarpur (Amroha), residents began drawing maps — not of fields, but of drone paths and power cuts.
'They stop above your house like they are measuring it,' said Brahampal Singh of Isapur Sharkee. In Rajoha, three young men filming reels were beaten by villagers who thought they were guiding drones for a robbery ring. In Adampur, a drone passed overhead one evening, later that night someone stole a two-wheeler battery. 'Maybe a coincidence, maybe a conspiracy,' said one resident. Police have said no theft has yet been conclusively linked to drones.
But across dozens of villages, the fear persists: someone is watching, and no one knows who. Bijnor SP Sanjeev Vajpayee said cops had stepped up night patrols, were tracking local drone sales, and scanning social media for flight footage. 'Some of this is probably mischief,' he said. 'But not all of it.' Apart from jail breach arrest, no other pilots have been identified, and no drones recovered. Yet in village after village, people keep looking up.
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