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.
In a major breakthrough in the killing of Shaurya Chakra awardee Balwinder Singh Sandhu in 2020, Punjab Police on Tuesday arrested key accused Gurwinder Singh, a.k.a. Baba, from Tarn Taran.
Cyber Crime Portal from the complainant Baldev Singh (a head Granthi in a Gurudwara in Delhi) was received alleging that he was contacted by a person in name of providing Kirtan opportunity in marriages and other cultural occasions in various cities of United States. Following this offer, the complainant transferred Rs. 1.25 lakh in bank accounts provided by the accused person.
Deputy Inspector General, Anti-Gangster Task Force Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said the team acted on a tip off to locate the kingpin Parminder Singh, alias Pindri, who was handling the operation of Bishnoi gang in the Nangal-Ropar belt. He said 22 first information reports (FIRs), including an attempt to murder, have been registered against the gangster.
The passenger reached at terminal number 3 on August 6. He was intercepted after he had crossed the Green Channel and was approaching towards the exit gate. On thorough checking of his baggage, nothing suspicious was found.
The operation was carried out in all seven border districts of Pathankot, Gurdaspur, Batala, Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur and Fazilka. Major focus of this operation was to keep vigil on movement of drones carrying drugs and arms, ammunition, explosives and grenades in the border areas, an official statement said.
The passenger was intending to fly to Dubai by flight IX-141 from T3 on Thursday. Offloaded on the basis of suspicion, the man and his luggage was checked and the US currency recovered from plastic thread roll in his trolley bag.
