The Peshawar Safe City Project has integrated drone and anti-drone technology into its central command system, in a step that police officials say is meant to improve security and surveillance across the city. The announcement was made by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police on Wednesday, and police officials described the integration as one of the leading initiatives of its kind in the country, since it links a drone unit and an anti-drone system with a Safe City project. The arrangement brings aerial and ground surveillance under one command, and it adds new tools to the cameras and other technologies that the project already uses.
According to police officials, the anti-drone system can detect and monitor drones within a radar range of about five kilometers. It will generate alerts automatically, and any suspicious drone activity will trigger an immediate notification to the Safe City control room. This allows officers in the control room to assess a possible threat as soon as a drone enters the coverage area, and to coordinate a response. The integration will also enable round the clock aerial surveillance of sensitive locations, traffic and criminal activities, which helps authorities to identify potential security threats from the air as well as from the ground.
The drone surveillance system will not be limited to Peshawar. Police officials said that it will also operate in Dera Ismail Khan, Bannu and Lakki Marwat, so the aerial network is being extended to three more districts of the province under the Safe City initiative. Live feeds from the drones of the Safe City will allow officials to monitor field operations in real time, which gives commanders a direct view of events as they happen. The system will also provide operational support to the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD), the officials added.
The Peshawar Safe City project was conceived in 2008, and after repeated delays it was formally launched in May 2025. It uses cameras and technologies that include artificial intelligence, facial recognition and automatic number plate readers, and its command and control centre is meant to bring urban surveillance, emergency response and traffic management together on one platform. Police began to deploy handheld anti-drone jammers in several districts in 2025, and longer range drones are now being added to expand the reach of the force. The new integration therefore adds drones and an anti-drone system to a project that already combines several surveillance technologies in a single control room.
Follow the SPIN IDG WhatsApp Channel for updates across the Smart Pakistan Insights Network covering all of Pakistan’s technology ecosystem.
