Pakistan drone used for airdropping arms recovered near Attari border
The Police on Friday (September 27) recovered a Pakistani drone which was used to airdrop arms and ammunition in border areas of Punjab, the second such seizure this week in the state, officials said.
The damaged drone was recovered in Mahawa village based on the information given by one of the four people the state police arrested on Sunday. They are allegedly part of a terror module of the Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF).
Earlier, the police had recovered a half-burnt drone on Tuesday (September 24) from Tarn Taran. They had said it was also used to drop weapons from Pakistan to fuel unrest in Punjab and adjoining states.
Akashdeep, one of the four arrestees whose interrogation led to the latest seizure, also accompanied a State Special Operations Cell (SSOC) team of the Punjab Police to the site from where the drone was recovered.
Police officials said the drone was damaged and it could not fly back to Pakistan after delivering the consignment of weapon. However, they did not show the drone to the media. The state police had claimed to have busted the terror module of the KZF, which is backed by a group based in Pakistan and Germany.
Four members of the module — Balwant Singh alias Nihang, Akashdeep Singh alias Akash Randhawa, Harbhajan Singh and Balbir Singh — were arrested near Chohla Sahib village in Tarn Taran.
Five AK-47 rifles, 16 magazines and 472 rounds of ammunition, four Chinese-made 30 bore pistols, along with eight magazines and 72 rounds of ammunition; nine hand grenades, five satellite phones with their ancillary equipment, two mobile phones, two wireless sets and fake currency with the face value of ₹10 lakh were recovered from them.
Taking serious note of Pakistan using Chinese drones to airdrop weapons in Punjab, the Army and BSF on Thursday (September 26) sounded an all-out alert along the entire Indo-Pak border and the LoC.
On Wednesday (September 25), the police had said GPS-fitted drones carried out seven to eight sorties from Pakistan to drop weapons which were seized in Punjab’s Tarn Taran district. A Punjab police probe also indicated the weapons were to be used to carry out terror attacks in neighbouring Jammu and Kashmir.
