Drone drops box containing 9 grenades, 1 pistol, IED in Jammu's Akhnoor

The Jammu and Kashmir police in a joint operation with the Indian Army, on Thursday, recovered a box that was dropped by a drone in the area of Palanwallah village near the LoC (Line of Control), said the police.

According to the information received from the officials, the police recovered 9 grenades, one pistol, 2 Magazines of pistol, 38 rounds of ammunition and an IED (Improvised Explosive Device) fitted with batteries from the box.

The Khour Police Station registered an FIR under relevant sections and an investigation has been taken up, said police.

This is not the first instance where attempts have been made to smuggle arms or narcotics into the Indian territory from across the border.

This has especially been a severe problem in the state of Punjab where frequent smuggling attempts are made with the help of drones by cross-border smugglers.

Earlier, on Wednesday, the Border Security Force (BSF) troops foiled a smuggling bid and recovered a drone with contraband items weighing 534 grams from the farming field near Mianwala village in Punjab's Tarn Taran district.

The operation was carried out in the evening hours and was launched after getting specific information regarding the presence of a drone, said a press release by BSF's Punjab Frontier.

"BSF troops recovered 1 drone along with 1 small plastic bottle filled with contraband item suspected to be Heroin (Gross wt - 534 gms), wrapped with white adhesive tape, a metallic ring attached with it, from the farming field ahead of Border fencing near Village Mianwala," added the press release.

Similarly, in March this year, the BSF recovered a drone along the international border in Punjab.

In a statement, BSF had said, "On Friday at about 02:28 am, BSF troops deployed along the Indo-Pakistan border in the area of Metla in the Gurdaspur sector of Punjab detected a drone infiltrating into Indian territory from Pakistan side, and subsequently fired upon the rogue drone."

The BSF personnel later conducted a search and found a packet that was dropped by a drone containing five pistols, 10 pistol magazines, 71 rounds of 9 MM ammunition, and 20 rounds of ammunition with .311 written in it.