BSF recovers narcotics dropped by drone in Punjab's Tarn Taran

In a joint search operation launched by BSF and Punjab police in the outskirts of Mehdipur village of Punjab's Tarn Taran district, a consignment of contraband items dropped by a drone was recovered in the wee hours of Friday (September 1).

Acting upon a lead, during a search operation around 5:40am, troops recovered a white-coloured sack containing three packets, suspected to be heroin (gross weight appx 2.752kg), along with four illuminating strips and an attached iron hook (to aid for hanging from a drone), from a farmland near Mehdipur village.

Incidents of dropping drugs via drones are not an alienated concept in Tarn Taran, owing to its location. In a similar incident, police shared a video showing a Pakistani drone airdropping a packet of heroin at Naushehra Dhala village, situated along the India-Pakistan border in Tarn Taran. Police arrested three persons with the recovery of a drone, Rs 30 lakh drug money, 3kg of heroin and a pistol in two separate incidents in Tarn Taran.

Prior to that, in the first half of August, in a joint operation, the BSF and the Punjab police recovered a suspected Pakistani drone and 3kg of heroin from a field near the India-Pakistan border in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district, said officials, as reported by the news agency. A BSF official said the troops conducted the search operation late on Sunday night, after hearing the buzzing sound of the drone near Kalash village in the district. Officials also said they suspect that the unmanned aerial vehicle entered Indian territory from Pakistan.