Peddlers use tubewells on border to smuggle contraband to Punjab
NEW DELHI: Tube wells on the India-Pakistan border in Punjab provide more than just water.
The Border Security Force (BSF) on Monday recovered four bottles – each filled with around 1.5 kg of suspected heroin – from a tube well in Daoke area of Amritsar.
“Though the tube well is situated on our side of the security fence, it is used to irrigate fields located between the fence and the international border. The pipe of the tube well goes below the barbed wire fence to water the fields,” said Shubhendu Bhardwaj, spokesperson of the Border Security Force.
He added, “Pakistan-based smugglers have been using this pipe, which is around eight to 10 inches in diameter, to smuggle the contraband into India.”
He said associates of the Pakistani drug dealers would draw the heroin to the Indian side with the help of a rope.
“Smugglers across the border passed the waterproof bottles filled with the narcotic substance through the opening late at night. Their associates here only had to pull the rope to procure them,” said Bhardwaj.
Farmers have now been strictly instructed to install iron grills on all tube well pipes opening into fields located on the other side of the fence.
Border Security Force personnel discovered the heroinfilled bottles while carrying out a search operation in the area between the international border and the barbed wire fence on Monday.
With this, they have seized over 40kg heroin in this zone since the start of the year.