PAK's attempt to smuggle narcotics foiled in J&K; forces cripple terrorists' funding source [details]

Foiling nefarious designs of Pakistan to smuggle drugs into this side of the border to fund terror groups, forces on Friday recovered 31 kilograms of narcotics near Line of Control (LoC) in Jammu and Kashmir's Poonch district.

"Based on authentic inputs regarding smuggling of narcotics through the LoC in Poonch district, the Indian Army along with the Jammu and Kashmir Police launched relentless operations in the sensitive areas," Jammu-based Defence spokesman Col Devender Anand said.

"The operations were backed up with a well-integrated surveillance grid coupled with extensive domination of the areas close to the LoC in Poonch. On 19 and 20 January 2022, narcotics weighing approximately 31 kilograms have been recovered in a search operation conducted by Indian Army and Jammu and Kashmir Police, very close to the LoC," Col Anand said.

Narcotics likely to be dropped through drones

Although security agencies have started the investigation, it is believed that drones were used to drop narcotics in this side of the LoC.

"Keeping in view the accumulation of heavy snow on the LoC, it is difficult rather impossible to cross the border with a bag of narcotics," a source said, adding, "it is widely believed that drugs were dropped by drones- controlled from across the border."

On Thursday, the BSF had recovered 8kg heroin from the International Border area near Punjab's Amritsar district. Officials said that the drugs were dropped via drone close to the border security fence a night before. The troops conducted searches after detecting drone movement in the sector and recovered a drone from the fields.

A pouch was seen attached to the drone using threads, indicating that goods were dropped using the aerial device.

Ahead of Republic Day, patrolling on the LoC has been intensified to check infiltration. Special pickets have been set up in the areas infamous as infiltration routes.

Meanwhile, forces have started an operation to identify the persons for whom narcotics were smuggled from across the LoC.

Terror groups make money by selling drugs

In August 2021, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) had filed a chargesheet against the seven arrested terrorists in Handwara narco-terrorism case. NIA's chargesheet had exposed the nefarious designs of terror groups.

The deep-rooted conspiracy for procuring and selling narcotics drugs and generating funds in J-K and other parts of India was unearthed during the questioning of seven arrested accused in the Handwara narco-terrorism case.

During the investigation, it was established that the seven charge-sheeted accused were part of a deep-rooted conspiracy for procuring and selling narcotics drugs and generating funds in J&K and other parts of India in close association with operatives of banned terrorist outfits, Lashkar-E-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), based across the border in Pakistan.

The funds generated were pumped for the furtherance of terrorist activity in the UT of Jammu and Kashmir through a network of overground workers ( OGWs).