Pak violated Indian airspace 23 times

Pakistan has violated Indian airspace 23 times,Lok Sabha was informed.

Pakistan has violated Indian airspace 23 times out of the 29 such incidents in the last three years,Lok Sabha was informed today.

Indian air space has been violated 29 times by foreign aircraft during the period December 2007 to November 2010. These include 23 occasions by Pakistan,thrice by China,twice by the US and once by Bangladesh, Defence Minister A K Antony said in written reply to a query.

He said in response of these violations,Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs) have been laid down which also include deployment of fighter aircraft by the IAF.

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The matter is also taken up with the concerned country through diplomatic channels as per established procedure, Antony added.

Last year,two Chinese military aircraft including Mi-17 helicopters had transgressed into Indian territory and dropped food items there.

In view of such incidents,the IAF has decided to upgrade its surveillance systems along the frontiers and is in the process of deploying mountain and ground-based radars.

Answering another query,the Minister said 7,322 Indian Army personnel have been deployed in seven UN peacekeeping missions.

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The missions include UNIFIL (Lebanon),UNDOF (Golan Heights,Israel/Syria),MONUSCO (Democratic Republic of Congo),UNMIS (Sudan),UNOCI (Ivory Coast),MINUSTAH (Haiti) and UNMIT (East Timor).