Wartime heroes to Op Sindoor: The unsung heroes keeping India's desert border secure

Time of India

22-05-2025

Wartime heroes to Op Sindoor: The unsung heroes keeping India's desert border secure
Ashish ChauhanBharat Yagnik
TNN
May 22, 2025, 17:06 IST IST
In the age of hi-tech gadgetry, the old skill of reading footprints is still vital to national security in three desert districts of Gujarat. Trained Pagi trackers can translate sand impressions into detailed intelligence about border crossings. They were on vigil during Op Sindoor, too
Suigam/Nadabet (Banaskantha): Sherlock Holmes could find out a criminal from even the minutest of details: a few strands of hair, specks of cigarette ash. In Gujarat's desert districts, there is a small group of extraordinary individuals so adept at deciphering patterns in the sand even the fictitious detective would approve. In this age of hi-tech border surveillance, this group of men is as low-tech as you can get. Sometimes found walking barefoot through the desert, they are nonetheless an irreplaceable, time-honoured security asset.
Meet the Pagi , footprint trackers whose ability to decode the desert's shifting canvas is an important aid to border safety. They need no satellite imagery or motion sensors, just their eyes attuned to the subtlest disturbances in sand.