Tribune News Service
Chandigarh/Amritsar, May 24
The arrest of drug smuggler Lakhwinder Singh Lakha, who used to ship drones to Pakistan to fetch drugs, has renewed worries amongst security agencies about ‘reverse drone sorties’.
Under the modus operandi, smugglers buy drones from New Delhi or different locations and ship these to Pakistan to choose drugs.
In the standard observe, smugglers in Pakistan ship drones to drop drugs or weapons in border areas of Punjab. The ‘reverse drone sorties’ mirror the boldness of the smugglers in finishing up their actions.
Lakha, who arrested in Amritsar on Tuesday, claimed that he had used the drone solely for the primary time. However, the police suspected he was mendacity as he had bought the drone 4 months in the past from Delhi for Rs 9.5 lakh. Lakha claimed the drone wasn’t working correctly until now because of a technical snag.
In January 2020, the Punjab Police had busted a terror module which carried out a number of sorties of drones to deliver drugs and weapons. After that, no case of the ‘reverse drone sorties’ had been reported until now.
The Special Task Force (STF) towards drugs had arrested Lakha (26), who claimed he had been concerned in drug smuggling for 4 years.
Son of a retired sub-inspector and residing in border village of Chak Mishri Khan falling below Lopoke space in Attari sub-division, it was lure of straightforward cash that enticed him to cross-border smuggling. According to the police, Lakha had hyperlinks with cross-border smugglers, together with Moosa Khan of Pakistan. He used to get the contraband smuggled at Rs 8- Rs 10 lakh per kg from Pakistan facet. He used to promote it to retail peddlers at double or triple the revenue.
He was produced within the Ajnala court docket on Wednesday and remanded to three-day police custody for additional investigation.
The STF had recovered 1.6 kg of heroin, a hexacopter, a .32 bore pistol and a .315 bore rifle apart from a Samsung tab from this possession. He was additionally a part of a narco-terror module that provided the explosives used within the Ludhiana court docket advanced blast in December 2021.
