Kathua, Sep 2: In a major blow to cross border drone dropping activity, Kathua police has arrested 4 persons from J&K and Punjab, who were running Pak based drone dropping syndicate.
The operation was carried out under the guidance under the guidance of SSP Kathua, Shobhit Saxena (IPS).
In a statement, a police spokesperson stated that an information was received on 29/07/25 regarding a narcotic packet being drone dropped in village Chhan Tanda, Hiranagar near IB. On swift response by Police & BSF, approx. 447gm opium was recovered. in this connection, an FIR 107/25 under 8/18/19 NDPS Act & 13 UAPA was registered at PS Hiranagar and investigation was started.
He said during investigation, with help of local witnesses, two persons were arrested.
Officials identified these persons as Sukhwinder Singh s/o Lt Baldev Singh r/o Amritsar and Arshdeep Singh (aka Raja) s/o Paramjit Singh r/o Gurdaspur, Punjab. Their role was to pick the drone consignment & at further to act as courier, so as to supply narcotics to drug trafficker.
Both were employed in Ghagwal, Samba in NHAI project. This also led to recovery of 411 gm heroin, which these couriers had kept with themselves to say to supply it to trafficker in next opportunity.
Further with help of identifiers as narrated by courier and by scanning the database of all drug peddlers in area of Samba & Kathua, receiver of heroin was also identified and arrested.
Drug trafficker so arrested has been identified as Feroz Din (aka Allu) s/o Sahya r/o Rajbagh, Kathua. He was in touch with Pak based drug smuggler.
Further disclosure, led to arrest of drug kingpin/financier from Tarn Taran, Punjab. He was also in touch with same Pak based smuggler and was responsible for sending the proceeds of narcotics to Pakistan via Hawala channel. Heroin and cash was recovered from both drug trafficker and drug kingpin.
In investigation it has been found that, these accused are hardcore criminals and have already supplied above 30 kg of Heroin which was drone dropped in Punjab & J&K, to drug peddlers, in adjoining districts. They ran a sophisticated syndicate taking all precautions hence had been evading law enforcement till now. Further investigation in the case is ongoing, more recovery and arrests in coming days is expected.
In separate case of Police Post Nagri-Kathua, police has acted sternly against drug peddling by arresting 5 accused persons. On 01/07/25, 2 accused persons namely Murad Ali s/o Shah Din r/o Kathua and Bagh Hussain s/o Imam Hussain r/o Kathua were arrested with cash and heroin. A detailed investigation in case was undertaken which led to arrest of 3 more accused as part of backward and forward linkage in case. Additionally, 20gm heroin and cash also recovered from them.
“This stringent action against drone dropping and drug trade comes in backdrop of property seizures of drug traffickers in Kathua. It shows relentless resolve of Kathua police to eradicate the menace of drug trafficking in District Kathua.” The spokesperson stated.
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