Pahalgam Clue Points Skyward: After Huawei, China’s Beidou Gps Comes Under Scanner. Here's What We Know

The ongoing investigation into nan Pahalgam panic onslaught has revealed a caller furniture successful cross-border militancy — 1 that orbits good supra India’s surveillance grid. According to The Economic Times, Indian agencies person recovered that overseas militants killed successful Jammu & Kashmir complete nan past twelvemonth were often equipped pinch devices linked to China’s BeiDou Navigation Satellite System (BDS) — a high-precision outer web operated by nan China National Space Administration.

These BeiDou-enabled devices, including handheld navigation units and outer connection tools, could let militants to infiltrate, coordinate, and run successful India without relying connected accepted telecom networks. 

Unlike GPS aliases mobile towers, BeiDou’s Asia-focused architecture offers enhanced accuracy and resilience against jamming.

The entity route...

What sets BeiDou isolated is its expertise to usability wholly independent of big infrastructure. These systems alteration real-time, high-accuracy navigation successful distant terrains wherever mobile signals are anemic aliases nonexistent. Some versions moreover connection two-way outer messaging, giving militants nan expertise to pass without a traceable web footprint.

Experts declare cracking these systems is technically imaginable but takes respective days and often involves coordination pinch overseas agencies.

Unlike accepted Thuraya outer phones, which were bulky and visibly suspicious, Huawei’s phones merge outer tech seamlessly wrong everyday-looking handsets. These devices link to China’s Tiantong-1 outer network, bypassing Indian telecom entirely. They require nary outer antenna, nary SIM traceable to Indian carriers — and tin run covertly moreover during complete cellular blackouts.

Earlier generations of outer phones for illustration Thuraya could beryllium visually identified — their bulky frames and pop-up antennas made them easy targets for section operatives. But Huawei’s phones are indistinguishable from communal smartphones. Their outer capabilities let militants to text, call, and transmit location information nether nan radar, during shutdowns aliases blackout conditions.

Other Chinese brands — including OPPO, Xiaomi, Vivo, and Honor — are preparing phones pinch akin capabilities. With minimal regulatory scrutiny complete outer messaging features, Indian intelligence could look a widening spread successful intercepting panic communications.

While Indian forces person improved ground-level intelligence, nan emergence of encrypted, foreign-operated outer tech — particularly from China — brings pinch it a caller challenge.

Published on: Apr 30, 2025 12:08 PM IST