On lines of Iran's Shahed-136 drone, Indian companies unveil kamikaze drones with 1,000 km range

New Delhi: Based on the line of Iran’s Shahed-136 kamikaze drone that has targeted several US military bases as well as other critical assets in the Gulf countries, two Indian defence companies have unveiled ‘Sheshnaag-150’ and ‘Project KAL’, long-range attack drones capable of flying over 1,000 km carrying heavy payloads for precision strikes on enemy assets. Both the India-made attack drones are still in the testing stage.

While Noida-headquartered IG Defence has is working on ‘Project KAL’, a long-range indigenous kamikaze drone with 3 to 5 hours of endurance to boost India's deep-penetration strike capabilities, NewSpace Research and Technologies has showecased a full-scale “Sheshnaag-150” swarm drone that can carry a 40kg payload and has an endurance of 5 hours.




The 5-hour endurance will allow the KAL drone to remain airborne long enough to observe target areas, gather intelligence, and adjust its trajectory before executing a precision strike. The drone is also designed to carry a high-explosive payload to engage critical military and strategic assets such as logistics hubs, radar installations, and infrastructure nodes.

According to reports, even the US has taken to reverse-engineering to develop a low-cost ‘kamikaze’ drone based on Iranian Shahed-136 it had captured sometime back, and is now using it against Tehran in the Gulf conflict.

Founded in 2018 by entrepreneurs Bodhisattwa Sanghapriya and Om Prakash, IG Defence has roped in several senior retired military officers like Anil Kumar Samantara, former DG of Infantry, Anil Chait, former Chief of Integrated Defence Staff, and Rajendra N Gaekwad, a veteran IAF officer to get experts’ advice on technology development.

Maj Gen R C Padhi (Retd), senior vice-president at IG Defence, said, “Unmanned systems are rapidly transforming the character of modern warfare. Recent developments in the Middle East have once again demonstrated how long-range strike drones can influence operational strategies by combining reach, persistence and cost efficiency. With Project KAL, our objective is to develop home-grown capability in this emerging category and contribute to India’s growing defence innovation ecosystem.”

The company has made operational a major production facility in Noida in late 2025, while additional UAV manufacturing plants are being planned in UP’s Jhansi and Odisha’s Ganjam district. These facilities are expected to significantly scale up the company’s drone production capacity by 2028.