Personnel on alert as smugglers from Pak use balloons to transport drugs
On Sunday afternoon, BSF personnel found 3kg heroin tied to two balloons in Sahowal village near the border.
Security personnel posted on the India-Pakistan international border in Punjab are keeping an eye on balloons in the sky fitted with LED lights in the backdrop of two recent cases that showed such contraptions being used to drop recreational drugs from across the border, officials aware of the matter said on Wednesday.
The officials added that Pakistani smugglers have adopted the new modus operandi -- sending contraband consignments released from small balloons attached to drones flying across the border -- to get past tight surveillance on the Indian side. As cases began increasing last year, the Border Security Force (BSF) stepped up vigilance, started using drone jammers, and set up anti-drone hit teams, after which 22 such devices were shot down at the border. To avoid detection and being shot down, the smugglers are now flying drones at higher altitudes (800-900m) and using balloons to drop consignments, an official aware of the details said.
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The balloons are fitted with LED strips to help smugglers on the Indian side of the border track the contraband when it is dropped at night.
On Sunday afternoon, BSF personnel found 3kg heroin tied to two balloons in Sahowal village near the border. An LED strip light was also attached to the packet. Before this, the first case of four balloons tied to a drone was reported on February 16, when authorities found four deflated balloons along with 2kg heroin near the border fence in Dalla Rajputan village, Amritsar Rural.
Explaining why the smugglers started using balloons, a second officials, said, “The minute a drone enters a specific frequency, it is locked by our jammers and brought down. Now they are flying drones at a higher level and dropping the drugs that are tied to balloon from that height. The balloons also help reduce the impact of the fall because of which the drugs concealed in polythene covering remain intact,” said a BSF official, who asked not to be named.
After the method was first detected around mid-2019, 22 drones were shot by the BSF last year and 14 in the first three months of this year so far. Some of these were used to drop AK series rifles, bullets and Chinese pistols in addition to drugs.
Earlier this month, the forensic analysis of a drone that was brought down by security forces on December 25, 2022 showed that it was flown in Feng Xian district of Shanghai in China on July 11, 2022 and in Khanewal Pakistan between September 24 and December 25, before it was shot down by security forces in Punjab.
