December 9, 2024 10:13 pm

 2 held with 10 kg heroin, hi-tech drone in Punjab

Chandigarh: The Punjab police on Sunday claimed to have busted a trans-border narcotic smuggling cartel with the arrest of its two kingpins and recovering 10 kg heroin and one sophisticated drone from their possession.

The arrested have been identified as Dalbir and Jagdish, residents of Gharinda in Amritsar who were engaged in drug trafficking for the past three years.

Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab, Gaurav Yadav the Amritsar rural police teams led by SSP Swapan Sharma in an intelligence-based operation busted this drug smuggling cartel, which had been smuggling contraband to states including Haryana, Delhi and Uttar Pradesh after getting them from cross-border using drones.

He said the USA made sophisticated drone recovered from the duo smugglers, was a DJI series drone worth Rs 20 lakh, having hi-tech features including long-lasting battery back-up and an infrared-based night vision camera.

SSP Sharma said both the accused had been evading arrest by using different modus operandi to smuggle the contraband. Stating that the accused had a well-oiled distribution network in the neighbouring states – which had now been identified following the arrest – he said the police teams were conducting raids at various locations in Haryana and Delhi, and more contraband seizures were likely to follow.

Yadav held that it was the fifth drone to have been recovered in the past one month; beside the one mentioned above, four other drones had been recovered from different areas of border district of Tarn Taran district; while a hexacopter drone carrying 6.68 kg heroin was recovered on November 29, a broken quadcopter drone was recovered on November 30, another hexacopter drone with 5.60 kg heroin on December 2, and another quadcopter drone loaded with 3.06 kg heroin on December 4, last.

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