Pak drone shot down in Tarn Taran, 3kg heroin recovered
TARN TARAN : The Border Security Force (BSF) spotted three drones entering the Indian territory near Khemkaran village of Tarn Taran district on Saturday night.
According to officials, BSF personnel opened fire and recovered one drone with 3kg of heroin on Sunday morning from a field at Kalia village in a joint operation with the Punjab Police. Search operations are still on in the area.
The first incident was reported around 11pm on Saturday near the border outpost (BOP) Kalia when a buzzing sound of a flying object was noticed, prompting the BSF personnel to open fire.
A BSF spokesperson said: “During a thorough search of the area, the team of BSF and Punjab Police recovered a quad copter DJ Matrice weighing 7.2Kg lying broken in a field near Kalia. During further search, three packets, suspected to be heroin weighing 3.068kg) were also recovered.”
The second incident was reported at around 2.30 am on Sunday near the border outpost KK Barrier. Twelve rounds were fired towards the drone from INSAS rifle, besides launching 2 illumination bombs from .55 mm mortar, said an official.
In a similar incident at 2.44am on Sunday near border outpost Gajjal, the BSF personnel opened fire, but the drone
managed to return towards the Pakistan side.
“Carrying on the special drive against trans-border smuggling networks, Tarn Taran police and BSF, in a joint operation have recovered a quadcopter drone with 3 kg heroin during a search in an area of PS Valtoha, Tarn Taran,” said Punjab director general of police Gaurav Yadav in a tweet.
This comes a day after the BSF recovered about 27kg of heroin, which was airdropped by a Pakistani drone, in the Fazilka district.
On Thursday night, a drone was found from a field near the India-pakistan border in the
Tarn Taran district along with over 5kg of heroin, police had said. On Monday, two Pakistani drones, carrying around 10 kg of heroin, were gunned down by the BSF along the India-pakistan border in Amritsar and Tarn Taran.
On Wednesday, a broken quadcopter was recovered from the area of Van Tara Singh village in Khalra in Tarn Taran.
The BSF has also recovered cache of arms, ammunition and huge amount of heroin smuggled via drone along the border last week in Ferozepur and Fazilka districts.