Arms smuggling via drones a challenge for security forces

Tribune News Service

GS Paul

Amritsar, May 17

In the absence of any technology that could counter the air penetration from across the India-Pakistan border, the smuggling of narcotics and arms through drones has been the biggest challenge for the security agencies

The emerging trend of terrorist-gangster-smuggler-criminal nexus, sensitive issues like drug trafficking, capacity-building in the area of counter-drone measures and fast exchange of actionable information on real-time basis, was deliberated upon during the joint coordination meeting of senior Punjab Police officers of the border districts of Punjab and senior BSF officers organised at BSF Campus, Khasa, Amritsar.

Arpit Shukla, Special Director General (Law and Order) agreed that smuggling through drones was indeed a challenge and that a mutual strategy in collaboration with the BSF was being devised to counter this menace.

Shukla said that the focus of the meeting was to have a seamless multi-level coordination between the police and the BSF, in addition to roping in the local population of the border belt.

On the lines of the BSF, the Punjab Police too has announced an award of Rs 1 lakh to an informer who would expose those indulging in smuggling through drones. Shukla claimed that the BSF’s exercise of awarding the informers has yielded results.

Punjab shares an approximately 553 km of international border with Pakistan comprising the districts of Amritsar, Gurdaspur, Tarn Taran and Ferozepur.

In the absence of any technological counter plan, the security agencies are dependent only on troop alertness in detecting the “buzzing sounds” of the drones.

Though the BSF possesses a trained dog squad to detect the concealed narcotics and arms, the latest addition was a female dog that has been trained to catch the sound of drones.

Christened as “Frooti”, this German Shepherd has been deployed since May 2022 after it underwent a special training at the BSF’s National Dog Training Centre at Tekanpur, Gwalior. It has secured the title of being India’s first trained dog in drone detection.

On the success rate of cracking the cross-border drug nexus, an official, preferring anonymity, said that breaking the drug supply chain would be a daunting task.

Misutilising the digital technology platform, smugglers from this side send the location through mobile phone to their Pakistani handlers to bring in consignments from across the border at the designated spot.

Further, the couriers who ferry the drug packets from one place to the other change various hands and would be detached after delivering the consignment. Hence, it becomes difficult to reach the end-user.

According to the data, across the entire western border that runs through the states of Gujarat, Rajasthan, Punjab and the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), 106 drone activities were witnessed since January 2023. In Punjab, there were 87 sightings of drones, out of which five were shot down and five were recovered that may have landed or fallen. One was shot in Rajasthan.

In 2022, from January 1 to December 28, there were 254 drone activities in Punjab out of which nine were shot and 12 were recovered.

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