Nationwide Civil Defence Mock Drills begin at 4 pm today

The Ministry of Home Affairs has instructed multiple states to carry out mock drills aimed at strengthening civil defence preparedness.

A nationwide civil defence mock drill is set to take place on Wednesday, May 7, across 244 districts in India, as directed by the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA). This marks the first major exercise of its scale in decades and comes shortly after India carried out airstrikes on nine terror sites in Pakistan and Pakistan-Occupied Kashmir.

The precision strikes were launched in the early hours of Wednesday and lasted just 25 minutes. Between 1.05 a.m. and 1.30 a.m., 24 missiles were deployed to strike nine terrorist facilities, including Lashkar-e-Taiba’s headquarters in Muridke and major terror training sites in Bahawalpur — long considered breeding grounds for extremist operations.

The Indian government confirmed that all nine targets were successfully struck, with no civilian or military infrastructure in Pakistan being affected. The strikes were part of India’s response to the April 22 terror attack that claimed the lives of 25 Indians and one Nepali national in Jammu and Kashmir.

The Ministry of Home Affairs has instructed multiple states to carry out mock drills aimed at strengthening civil defence preparedness. The drills will involve activating air raid warning systems and training civilians, including students, in key safety protocols to safeguard themselves during potential hostile threats or attacks.

Haryana Chief Secretary Anurag Rastogi on Wednesday chaired a review meeting on the arrangements for the mock drill under ‘Operation Abhyas’, which will be conducted across all 22 districts of Haryana at 4:00 pm today. In alignment with this exercise, the general public have been requested to switch off all lights in their homes from 7:50 pm to 8:00 pm as a part of the drill. In Delhi alone, the drill will be carried out at more than 55 places, with five locations chosen in each of the city’s 11 districts.

The drills are being carried out across major cities, including Delhi, Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru, Gwalior, and Jaipur, focusing on evaluating local response capabilities to security challenges.

These drills serve as a critical step in evaluating India’s preparedness for handling complex security situations, providing essential insights into the nation’s ability to respond swiftly and effectively.
After the Pahalgam terror attack that killed 26 Indian tourists, the Government of India announced a nationwide civil defence mock drill on Wednesday.

The MHA directed all states and union territories to carry out the drills, which included simulations of blackouts, air raid sirens, evacuation procedures, and public training sessions aimed at preparing for war-like emergencies. The civil defence on Tuesday held a meeting with all its employees on the ways to protect citizens in case of an air attack in the city. Along with this, everyone was also given guidelines on protecting the public.

The civil defence individuals were also made aware of activities to be undertaken by citizens during a sudden attack, and what precautions they should take to ensure minimum damage. Information on how to manage the crowd during a disaster was also provided. The measures include the provision of crash blackout measures, provision for early camouflaging of vital installations and updation of the evacuation plan and its rehearsal.

The Indian Armed Forces launched ‘Operation Sindoor’ in the early hours of Wednesday, hitting terrorist infrastructure in Pakistan and Pakistan-occupied Jammu and Kashmir from where terrorist attacks against India have been planned and directed. Twenty-six people were killed in the April 22 terror attack at Pahalgam in Jammu and Kashmir. The government had said that the perpetrators would face severe punishment.

Soon after the focused strikes on terrorists and terrorist infrastructures as part of Operation Sindoor, National Security Advisor (NSA) Ajit Doval spoke with his counterparts from the United States, Japan and several other countries and briefed them about India’s “measured, non-escalatory” action, sources said. The government had convened an all-party meeting after the Pahalgam terror attack and the opposition parties had expressed their full support to the government for any action against the perpetrators of the Pahalgam terror attack, ANI reported.

Addressing a media briefing today on Operation Sindoor in which terror camps were targeted, Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri said Indian intelligence agencies have been monitoring terrorist activities and raised concerns regarding more terrorist attacks in India. Some videos of the strikes destroying terror camps were also shown at the briefing held in the national capital today.

(With agencies’ input)