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Fog helping smugglers in Pakistan to send drones carrying drugs to Punjab: Officials
Smugglers in Pakistan took advantage of the dense winter fog to send drones carrying illicit drugs and arms across the border in Punjab, according to officials who interrogated four men arrested last week for receiving the consignments.
Smugglers in Pakistan took advantage of the dense winter fog to send drones carrying illicit drugs and arms across the border in Punjab, according to officials who interrogated four men arrested last week for receiving the consignments.
Four men from Tarn Taran district, who are being questioned by the Narcotics Control Bureau, told officials that the smugglers take advantage of low visibility and used GPS devises on the drones to drop the consignments.
“Based on specific intelligence, we arrested two men on January 30 from one such drop zone in a sugarcane field. While they were in custody, we made them speak to their handlers in Pakistan. In 2-3 hours, this gang did eight sorties and dropped nearly 9 kg heroin, a pistol and cartridges,” an official said, declining to be named.
“The first drop that night had happened around 11.30 pm. There was dense fog in the area. They said that the influx of such drones was high in December and January because of the dense fog at this time of the year,” he added.
The case has been handed over to NCB for a detailed probe into the nexus of villagers in Punjab’s border villages with smugglers based in Pakistan.
The Border Security Force has been directed by top brass to strengthen its intelligence network and increase surveillance whenever there is dense fog at the border.
“At some border outposts, we are testing anti-drone machines, which will immediately trap a foreign moving object once it enters our radar. But at most places along the border, we bust cases using our intelligence network or shoot down drones after hearing their sound in the air, an officer of the border guards said on condition of anonymity.
“The drones are then shot down by firing from the ground. The drones could be flying at a height of 50-100m (about 328 ft) or even higher above the ground, so it becomes difficult to track them during the fog,” said the officer posted at the border. “This is how smugglers take advantage of weather conditions and do multiple sorties to avoid detection.”
In January alone, border guards and Punjab police recovered drugs or drones shot down by forces or crash landed from at least 23 different locations spread across five border districts that included Amritsar, Ferozepur, Gurdaspur, Fazilka and Tarn Taran. At one location in Ferozpur, an AK 47 rifle was dropped by a drone on January 18, official said.
The number was even higher in December. Drones or drugs were recovered from at least 32 locations at different villages in the border districts, they said.
Citing an example of how the smugglers relentlessly pushed drones this winter despite forces shooting them down or recovering the dropped consignments, another official cited the example of the Dhanoe Khurd village in Amritsar, which is close to the international border in Attari.
“Between December 18 and 19, despite security forces shooting down a drone that had entered Indian airspace at Dhanoe Khurd, Pakistani smugglers continued to send one drone after another. Three different drones were shot down and seized from the village in those two days,” the officer said, wishing to remain unnamed.
Pakistani smugglers attempted to send another drone a week later on December 26 near the same village, he said.
The drone incursions have not stopped. Last month, security forces again spotted drones flying in Dhanoe Khurd and later found two drug packets at two locations in the sugarcane fields. It was unclear if the same drone had dropped the two consignments that were recovered by forces on January 12.
To be sure, these are only cases when drones were detected. The actual number of sorties that the smugglers sent this season could be higher, officials said.
In the past three years, smuggling of drugs and weapons using drones at the border in Punjab has become a new challenge. The first case of a drone carrying drugs from Pakistan at the border in Punjab was spotted in 2019. That year, two drones were shot at and recovered by border guards.
There were no cases in 2020 and one case in 2021. In 2022, the force seized at least 22 drones. Last year, at least 90 drones were recovered by the force. It recovered 494 kg of heroin, 37 weapons and 601 rounds of bullets sent from Pakistan using drones, according to official data.
