Pakistan-backed drone drug racket busted in Kathua; 5 held from J&K, Punjab

In a major blow to the cross-border drone droppings, Kathua police, under the supervision of SSP Shobhit Saxena, have unearthed a Pakistan-based syndicate and arrested four persons from Jammu & Kashmir and Punjab, allegedly involved in drug smuggling, Police said on Tuesday.

Giving details, the Police said that on 29 July, an information was received regarding a narcotic packet being dropped in village Chhan Tanda, Hiranagar near the International Border (IB). On swift response by Police and BSF, approximately 447gm of opium was recovered. On this, FIR 107/25 under 8/18/19 NDPS Act & 13 UAPA was registered at police station Hiranagar and investigation was started.

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During the investigation, with the help of local witnesses, two persons, whose role was to pick the drone consignment at IB and further to act as courier, so as to supply narcotics to drug traffickers, were arrested. These persons have been identified as Sukhwinder Singh resident of Amritsar and Arshadeep Singh of Gurdaspur, Punjab. Both were employed in Ghagwal, Samba in the NHAI project.

This also led to recovery of 411 gm heroin, which these couriers had kept with themselves to supply it to traffickers in the next opportunity.

Further, with the help of identifiers as narrated by courier and by scanning the database of all drug peddlers in the area of Samba and Kathua, the receiver of heroin was also identified and arrested. Drug trafficker arrested has been identified as Feroz Din of Rajbagh, Kathua. He was in touch with a Pakistan-based drug smuggler.

Further disclosure led to the arrest of a drug kingpin and financier from Tarn Taran, Punjab. He was also in touch with the same Pakistan based smuggler and was responsible for sending the proceeds of narcotics to Pakistan via the Hawala channel. Heroin and cash were recovered from both drug traffickers and drug kingpins.

During investigation, it has been found that these accused were hardcore criminals and have already supplied above 30 kg of heroin, which was drone dropped in Punjab and J&K, to drug peddlers, in adjoining districts.

In a separate case of Police Post, Nagri-Kathua, police have arrested 5 accused persons. Two accused persons namely Murad Ali and Bagh Hussain, both from Kathua, were arrested with cash and heroin. A detailed investigation in the case was undertaken, which led to the arrest of 3 more accused as part of backward and forward linkage in the case.