The Civil Aviation Authority of Bangladesh said on Sunday that it seized an unauthorised drone from the VIP area of Hazrat Shahjalal International Airport in Dhaka on Saturday evening.

The drone was detected and seized while it was videoing the arrival of the SAFF U-20 Championship-winning Bangladeshi football players at the airport’s VIP pole gate minutes after 8:30pm on Saturday, a press release issued by the CAAB said.

The release said that the drone was flown without any prior approval from the CAAB, which is against the existing rules and regulations.

The airport is marked as a ‘red zone’ in the Drone Registration and Flying Guidelines, 2020, and flying drones without special permission from the authorities concerned in such a sensitive area is forbidden, it said.

HSIA executive director Raghib Samad, also a group captain of the Bangladesh Air Force, said that the drone was flown by an organisation in the red zone.

He, however, did not disclose the name of the organisation.

‘We have taken an undertaking from the organisation. They assured us that they would not engage in such activities in the future,’ he added.