LAHORE: A remote-controlled drone plane crashed on the Orange Line train terminal at Thokar Niaz Beg area on Wednesday, prompting the police and law-enforcement agencies (LEAs) to respond to the emergency amid reports that the Chinese engineers were working on the project.

The LEA personnel, including the Counter Terrorism Department Punjab, the Special Branch, the police, and the bomb disposal squad of the city district government rushed to the spot.

Occurred at around 3:30am, the incident was reported to the LEAs in the morning by the guards of the Punjab Masstransit Authority.

The police picked up a suspect who was said to be the owner of the drone plane following reports that he was operating it at the time of the incident.

Man operating the device says it got out of range during test run

Lahore Security SP Said Aziz, who was supervising the Chinese security, said a CTD team visited the spot and in its initial report suggested that the incident was apparently not related to any terrorism activity.

According to the CTD’s experts, the drone plane was not carrying any explosive material or any other device for surveillance. They suggested the police to seize the wreckage for forensic analysis.

In light of the initial report, the CTD has given the go-ahead to the local police to initiate its proceeding.

Meanwhile, the bomb disposal squad also made it clear that the plane was not containing any explosive material.

Resultantly, the Chuhng police registered a case against unidentified suspects on the complaint of Paul Nazeer, the security officer of Orange Line Train, the SP said.

Mr Paul stated in the FIR [first information report] that the drone plane crashed on the windowpane of the train and damaged it partially.

As the incident occurred in the wee hours, the train was stationed at the terminal.

Late at night, the investigation police claimed to have traced and arrested a suspect, Hamid, the owner of the drone plane.

He told the investigators that he was running the business of drone planes and cameras at the Hall Road, Lahore.

Hamid told the police that a customer had sold him the drone plane and it got out of control/range due to some ‘technical reasons’ and crashed on the train during a test run.

Published in Dawn, November 17th, 2022