The modus operandi of smuggling weapons and narcotics using drones had come to light earlier on September 25 when the police had recovered charred remains of a drone from a rice mill shed

Drones have revived the cross border smuggling of weapons and drugs as Punjab arms and drug smugglers are now sourcing the high-end GPS fitted drones from the free classified websites like OLX. Rahul Chauhan, a naik in the Army, who was arrested along with two Amritsar-based drug smugglers, has told the Punjab Police that he had purchased and sold one drone at OLX.

During an interrogation, Rahul Chauhan told the police that he had purchased Aspire 02 model of a partially damaged drone from OLX in 2019 for Rs 1.50 lakh. He got the drone repaired and sold it for Rs 2.75 lakh on the same website.

He then bought DJI Matrice 600 drone for Rs 3.20 lakh from Pune and sold it to an Amritsar-based smuggler for Rs 5.35 lakh. Police have recovered the DJI Matrice 600 drone from Karnal in Haryana.

Punjab Police officials have said that they seized two drones. While a China-made DJI MATRICE 600 PRO (Hexacopter) was recovered from Karnal, another drone, a Quadcopter, was seized from an abandoned government dispensary located in Modhe village in Amritsar in Punjab.

Besides Rahul Chauhan, the police have also arrested two Amritsar residents -- Dharminder Singh and Balkar Singh. Two of their gang members are still at large.

It was Rahul Chauhan who sold the drones to Dharminder Singh and Balkar Singh and even taught them how to fly the drones. Balkar and Dharminder then carried out four to five sorties to fetch consignments of drugs from Pakistan.

"The drones were sold by Rahul Chauhan and the sorties were carried out by Dharminder and Balkar. These drones were launched from the Indian side to fly two to three kilometres. Two of the gang members are on the run," DGP Punjab Dinkar Gupta said.

The police on Saturday had informed media that they have seized two walkie-talkie sets, Indian currency worth Rs 6.22 lakh, INSAS rifle magazine and two drones.

The modus operandi of smuggling weapons and narcotics using drones had come to light earlier on September 25 when the police had recovered charred remains of a drone from a rice mill shed.

The 'Khalistan Zindabad Force' terrorists, who were arrested in September 2019, had told the police that they had received 5 AK 47 Rifles, 16 magazines and 472 rounds, a Chinese made 30 bore pistol, five satellite phones, two mobile phones, two wireless sets and counterfeit currency worth Rs 10 lakh which was delivered to them through drones by their Pakistani handlers.

In order to keep an eye on the misuse of drones, the Punjab Police has now formed five special teams which will scan social media websites besides the inputs provided by the neighbouring states to keep an eye on anti-social elements.