Drone with 5.60 kg heroin seized along India-Pak border
Darpan News Desk IANS, 02 Dec, 2022 11:09 AM
Chandigarh, Dec 2 (IANS) Punjab Police on Friday foiled a major drug smuggling bid by Pakistan-based smugglers with the recovery of five packets of heroin, weighing 5.60 kg, along with a hexacopter drone, which was used to drop the consignment, during a search operation at border area of Khemkaran in Tarn Taran.
The operation was carried out with the support of the Border Security Force (BSF), a statement by the government said.
Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said after noticing the drone movement in India-Pakistan border on the intervening night of Thursday and Friday, police teams from Tarn Taran district shared the pin-pointed inputs with the BSF and jointly conducted a search operation in the area, which was just 2 km away from the border.
"During the search, a blue and black coloured hexacopter drone (model E616S) along with black tape-wrapped five packets of heroin weighing 5.60 kg was found lying in the agricultural land of a local resident," he said, adding the preliminary investigations suggest this drone was found to be having a modern technology and it could lift a good amount of weight.
This is the third such drone recovered by the Tarn Taran Police in less than a week.
Earlier, a hexacopter drone and a tape-wrapped package containing six packets of heroin, weighing 6.68 kg, was recovered in the jurisdiction of border outpost Harbhajan in Khem Karan on Tuesday.
On the next day, a broken quadcopter drone was recovered from the area of Van Tara Singh village in Khalra.
Sharing more details, Senior Superintendent of Police Sukhminder Singh Mann said investigations are on to ascertain the identity of Pakistan smugglers, who sent the consignment via drone, and also their Indian associates, who were to receive this air-dropped consignment of heroin.
Police have also recovered a cache of 55 pistols of .32 bore and .30 bore from their possession. The accused were apprehended from Madhya Pradesh by the Counter Intelligence unit of Punjab Police with the help of its counterparts in Madhya Pradesh.
Lingayat seer Dr Murugha Shivamurthy Sharanaru, accused of raping minor girls, was finally taken into custody by the Karnataka Police on Thursday night - six days after the FIR against him was lodged. Police sources said the accused seer will be produced before a court on Friday.
Taking umbrage at the Union Minister's new plan on how the future of Chandigarh would be decided, Badal said: "It is not in the ambit of Shekhawat to take a decision on this matter. This is a closed chapter. The UT status of Chandigarh is purely temporary pending transfer to Punjab."
Mann said in another significant decision, the state government has now decided to appoint Chief Minister Field Officers as Nodal Officers for NRIs to ensure redressal of their grievances. He said that these officers will prove to be an ideal Nodal Officer for NRIs as they will be effectively able to coordinate across departments and districts, besides having a direct communication with the Chief Minister's Office.
The passengers were later identified as Moshin Khan Saifi and Asim. Saifi was supposed to travel from Delhi to Hyderabad by Vistara Flight, whereas Asim was supposed to travel from Delhi to Dubai by Air India Express flight.
The official said that at about 4 pm, CISF staff at Terminal-3 noticed suspicious activities of a passenger in the check-in area. The passenger was later identified as Misam Raza, who was about to fly to Dubai on a SpiceJet flight. Raza was then diverted to the random checking point for a thorough checking of his luggage.
