Jammu, May 31: As several pockets of Jammu and adjoining areas witnessed a complete blackout from 8:02 pm to 8:22 pm on Saturday evening amid the blaring of sirens, few would be reminded of the escalation between India and Pakistan, witnessed during May 7 and 10, 2025.
However, for the majority of curious onlookers, it was an engrossing exercise sans panic amid not a ìswarm of dronesî but media persons.
As Police along with the SDRF and civil administration teams simulated the ìevacuation of victims of the enemy attack to a safer placeî in Jammu city, they (onlookers) enjoyed every bit of it.
Spectacle in Jammu was the conduct of scheduled ìOperation Shieldî – a second civil defence exercise conducted in J&K and five other States and Union Territories (UTs), adjoining the western border of the country as per MHA instructions.
The exercise aimed to plug ìcritical gaps in the civil defence preparedness of the vulnerable areasî, particularly observed on May 7 when the first such exercise was conducted in various parts of the country. In J&K and Ladakh, it was postponed.
Intriguingly, J&K and mainly five border districts of the Jammu region and two districts of Kashmir had witnessed ìlive escalatory actionî on May 7 and 10.
For the ìOperation Shieldî scheduled for May 31, the Jammu district administration had issued a public notice cum advisory.
As per schedule, it was to be observed from 8 pm to 8.15 pm to familiarise citizens with emergency response protocols during blackouts or crises and to evaluate the readiness of the public and the administration.
As per the advisory, for the 15-minute duration, all business activities, vehicular movement and routine operations had to pause.
However, the Police and civil administration stated that the people remained cooperative during the exercise.
However, if images being circulated across social media were an indication, the vehicular movement remained an irritant even when such mock drills (siren blaring, evacuation) were being conducted.
Few paused while many probably under the bliss of ignorance continued as usual, ignoring even another important advisory – switching off all lights including vehicle lights immediately after the siren sounds.
On the whole, the brief exercise was carried out peacefully.
