Hey guys. I just got back from a trip to India and I went planespotting at Mumbai. A couple of days before getting these photos, I actually got caught by the police spotting but luckily they let me go easily and I left.
I just couldn’t not spot so I came back to spot, this time much more cautious. I was in fear of being caught by the police as I spotted. In India, especially Mumbai, spotters are often interrogated by the police. I had to be really cautious while taking these shots, going as far as carrying my camera (Nikon D7000) in a plastic bag to not catch any attention. Thanks to @planespottinghd for helping me not get screwed over with the cops. This is my first post in a while so I hope you like it!
First off we have 9V-SMD! @George hope you like these
Nice shots. Shame the police haven’t got anything better to do though, especially in India. More target prone countries have less stringent rules so I’m at odds trying to figure out why it’s also illegal there.
They have actually. We have been victims of some ugly incidents and we believe in being safe. You cannot be relaxed just for the fancy of someone who is on a spotting spree with his camera.
Such words don’t seem nice when they come from someone who sits in the comfort of their homes. :)
There are other ways. If they monitor all activity there would be no problems. Police here build relationships with spotters so they report anything suspicious. In other words there may not be patrolling 24/7 but most of the time no one could do anything dodgy without someone spotting seeing. Of course they also have huge fences with monitors and cameras. I can say that just banning it does not solve a single thing, only makes it harder to police terrorism given you now suspect everyone with a camera.
that doesn’t answer my question. What is unsafe? You’re just telling me that others are paranoid of planespotting and really, no one is. When I was there, no one batted an eye.
Not others. The security agencies. And its paranoia. They want to make all peripherals as safe as possible. Because they do not know what, where and how the next incident might be. Its difficult since the entire Mumbai population is around 1.84 crores with some of them being ‘illegals’. (1.84 crores = 18.4 million).
Mumbai is the economic hub of India, and this city has witnessed a lot. There has been some strict rules particularly around high security areas like mumbai since its also 2nd busiest airport in India. we’ve learned to get used to it as it is for our safety only.
Mumbai is one of the city with large population in India and it’s one of the keycentre for the government of India and a very target proned area in India. Mumbai airport have had many issues in past, spotting was allowed but not for misuse, due to some people spying the airport with an excuse like spotting made it to be illegal. Saying these things are too easy but going into the reality of the things isnt. You must know that many terrorist attacks in past have been occured at Mumbai when it was not given much priority by security councils. Since those attacks, Bombay is now surrounded with security ensuring no attacks to be occured. Every airport have it’s own rules and regulations, it’s not because they want to reduce burden but it’s because they care of their citizens. No police officer sits behind and take glimpse of the aircrafts. Mumbai airport is one of the target proned areas maily by neighboring terrorists or terrorist group lile isis. All they do is for our security, and we completely support it as we know the past incidents caused to raise this.
