Pakistan sending IEDs into India through land and sea drug route: Intel report

The Ghazipur RDX IED had an electronic timer of one hour eight minutes once the device was armed through remote control.

Delhi Police investigations into the recovery of RDX-packed improvised explosive device (IED) at Ghazipur last Friday has taken a sinister turn with intelligence reports indicating that the Pakistani establishment is using land and sea drug pipeline to push ready-made IEDs into India.

IED recovered with cash on Indo-Pak border on January 14, 2022.  (HT PHOTO)

It is learnt that the remotely controlled timer in the Ghazipur explosive was set to detonate one hour eight minutes after the IED was armed. While the exact number of bomb consignments smuggled into India is anybody’s guess but as many as 20 IEDs, 5-6 kilograms of IED, and 100 grenades have been recovered by Punjab police alone. It is understood that terrorists based in Pakistan have been told to assemble more IEDs or tiffin bombs for distribution beyond Punjab and into poll-bound states like UP and sensitive states like Maharashtra, Gujarat, and Delhi.

According to security agencies, the cross-border drug smugglers dealing in Afghan heroin and opium have been tasked to push IEDs into India through drones and sea-going vessels. “The IED consignments, funded by drug money, are still coming into India with the objective of fanning a communal flare-up after a major incident,” said a senior official. 26/11 accused and Lashkar-e-Taiba Pakistan origin terrorist David Coleman Headley had disclosed to NIA how the Pakistani terror strikes were funded by drug money with drug smugglers often involved in the supply of arms and ammunition across the border into India.

Fact is that had the Delhi Police PCR not responded with alacrity in the Ghazipur case, the blast would have killed several innocents and created an atmosphere of uncertainty in the capital city. The explosive was put inside a steel tiffin with cycle bearing and nails, which itself becomes the source of deadly shrapnel when exploded. The bomb is designed in such a way that RDX forms a core charge with ammonium nitrate and fuel oil acting as a secondary charge to soup up the explosion.

In the past decade, tiffin bombs were the signature of Pak-sponsored Indian Mujahideen terrorist group with such IEDs used in 2005 Sarojini Nagar and Paharganj market blasts. The same devices were used by the group in blasts in Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Varanasi, Haldwani, Jaipur, Hyderabad, and Mumbai to deadly effect with hundred of innocents being killed in the rampage orchestrated by radicalized locals at the behest of their handlers across the border.