Crossborder smugglers are sneaking in heroin via J&K

AMRITSAR: With crossborder heroin smugglers increasingly using the land route to sneak the contraband into Punjab via Jammu and Kashmir, the state police have stepped up checking on roads leading here from the Union Territory.

This year, the Gurdaspur and Pathankot district police teams have busted four modules involved in smuggling of heroin via J&K. Pointing to the spurt in such cases, Mohnish Chawla, inspector general (IG) of Amritsar border range, said on Saturday: “We have increased our security checks on the route leading from J&K to Punjab. We are also coordinating with the J&K Police to keep a strict watch on anti-national elements using this land route for smuggling.”

The IG said that due to the Amarnath Yatra, around 6,000-7,000 vehicles are passing through the route every day, and there are apprehensions that smugglers may try to take advantage of the situation.

In the most recent seizure, 16-kg heroin was recovered from four Tarn Taran men in Gurdaspur on Friday. Travelling in two Toyota Innova SUVS, they had brought the contraband from Sundarbani area of Rajouri district in Kashmir. The consignment was concealed in a specially designed cavity of the two SUVS, a modus operandi seen in the previous cases too.

The IG said that preliminary investigations have established the suspects’ link with Pakistan. “We found some signs related to Pakistan on the seized heroin consignment,” he said.

Earlier, after similar heroin seizure from five men in two SUVS on June 16, the Gurdaspur police probe had pointed to the involvement on Jaskaran Singh, alias Jass, who belongs to Tarn Taran and is presently based in Australia. He was identified as the mastermind of the racket, who had been in contact with Pakistani smugglers.

On February 5, two seizures were made in Sujanpur and Shahpur Kandi areas of Pathankot district. In the first case, 11-kg heroin was concealed in the fuel tank of a truck, and in the other, 2-kg heroin was recovered from a specially designed cavity of a car. Both were coming from J&K.