The ‘drone threat’ has put the Indian and State’s security forces on edge on Tuesday. Two high-flying drones were spotted near the Indo-Pak border on the Pakistan side along Punjab’s Hussainiwala sector on late Monday night, following which an extensive search operation was launched in the area at once.
The drones were spotted by the BSF (Border Security Force) personnel four times on the Pakistani side, while once it was reportedly seen almost a kilometre inside the Indian territory. The development assumes significance as the Punjab Police had, so far, recovered two drones — one in August and another in burnt condition about a fortnight back — which was supposedly used for dropping arms and ammunition in the Indian territory.
The State police authorities has maintained that about eight sorties by drones, used by Pakistan-based terror groups, have been made to airdrop almost 80 kg of sophisticated arms and ammunition to foment trouble in Punjab.
The sight of drones has sent the security forces into a tizzy as the BSF troops witnessed at least five sorties originating from Pakistani side.
It has been informed that the BSF troops, belonging to 136 battalion, spotted high-flying drones five times between 10 pm to 10:40 pm on Monday night.
“Four times, the drone was spotted on Pakistani side. Once, the BSF troops sighted the drone venturing almost a kilometre inside the Indian Territory near border outpost HK Tower close to Hussainiwala, around nine kilometres from district headquarters,” said the sources.
Later, the BSF troops spotted the drone going back towards the Pakistani side, “but midway, its light and sound went off and it could not be tracked further and vanished within no time”.
Besides the BOP HK Tower, the BSF troops spotted a drone near border outpost Basti Ram Lal also at 12:25 am which was on Pakistani side.
Later, the BSF troops with assistance of Punjab Police conducted a search operation in the entire area, however, nothing suspicious was found.
It has been learnt that the troops have been asked to keep hawk's eye on such developments. The border guarding force has also started sensitising the residents along the border to immediately inform the police or BSF authorities if they spot anything unusual near the zero line. A senior police official told The Pioneer that the developments and detailed information has been shared with the concerned authorities and an alert has been sounded.
A senior police official said that the SWAT team and the BSF were involved in the search operation conducted on Monday night after the BSF spotted the drones.
“Search operation was carried throughout the night and intelligence inputs will be used to ascertain more information about the incident...The operations were carried out at night as well as during the day. We will be using intelligence inputs to ascertain which side the drone came from,” said the official. On September 24, the BSF/STF had seized huge quantity of sophisticated arms, including five AK-47 rifles, ten magazines, 200 rounds, one Austria-made Glock pistol, 22 magazines and 20 rounds, from Mamdot in this area the source of which still remains unknown.
Sources said that following abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, the Pakistan’s spy agency Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) was pushing the Pakistan-based Khalistani terrorists to carry out an attack of 26/11 magnitude in religious places in Punjab.
On September 22, the police had busted a terrorist module being run with the active support of terrorist groups from Pakistan and Germany and had recovered huge cache of arms, including five AK-47 rifles, four Chinese-made, 30 bore pistols, nine hand grenades, five satellite phones, which the police claimed had been dropped by a drone.
On September 12, another consignment was seized from a truck at Lakhanpur (Kathua) which included four AK-56 rifles, two AK-47 rifles besides over 10,000 bullets.
