KATHUA, Sep 02: In a major blow to cross border drone dropping activity, Kathua police under guidance of SSP Kathua, Shobhit Saxena, IPS, has arrested 4 persons from J&K and Punjab, who were running this syndicate. On 29/07/25 , an informa4on was received regarding a narco4c packet being drone dropped in village Chhan Tanda , Hiranagar near IB.
On swift response by Police & BSF, approx. 447gm opium was recovered. On this, FIR 107/25 under 8/18/19 NDPS Act & 13 UAPA was registered at PS Hiranagar and inves4ga4on was started. During inves4ga4on , with help of local witnesses , two persons, whose roles, was to pick the drone consignment at IB & further to act as courier, so as to supply narco4cs to drug trafficker , were arrested.
These persons have been iden4fied as Sukhwinder Singh s/o Lt Baldev Singh r/o Amritsar and Arshadeep Singh @ Raja s/o Paramjit Singh r/o Gurdaspur , Punjab. Both were employed in Ghagwal , Samba in NHAI project. This also led to recovery of 411 gm heroin , which these couriers had kept with themselves to say to supply it to trafficker in next opportunity. Further with help of iden4fiers as narrated by courier and by scanning the database of all drug peddlers in area of Samba & Kathua , receiver of heroin was also iden4fied and arrested. Drug trafficker so arrested has been iden4fied as Feroz Din @ Allu s/o Sahya r/o Rajbagh , Kathua. He was in touch with Pak based drug smuggler. Further disclosure, led to arrest of drug kingpin/financier from Tarn Taran, Punjab. He was also in touch with same Pak based smuggler and was responsible for sending the proceeds of narco4cs to Pakistan via Hawala channel. Heroin and cash was recovered from both drug trafficker and drug kingpin.
In inves4ga4on it has been found that , these accused are hardcore criminals and have already supplied above 30 kg of Heroin which was drone dropped in Punjab & J&K , to drug peddlers , in adjoining districts. They ran a sophis4cated syndicatetaking all precau4ons hence had been evading law enforcement 4ll now. Further inves4ga4on in the case is ongoing, more recovery and arrests in coming days is expected. In separate case of Police Post Nagri-Kathua, police has acted sternly against drug peddling by arres4ng 5 accused persons. On 01/07/25, 2 accused persons namely Murad Ali s/o Shah Din r/o Kathua and Bagh Hussain s/o Imam Hussain r/o Kathua were arrested with cash and heroin.
A detailed inves4ga4on in case was undertaken which led to arrest of 3 more accused as part of backward and forward linkage in case. Addi4onally, 20gm heroin and cash also recovered from them. This stringent ac4on against drone dropping and drug trade comes in backdrop of property seizures of drug traffickers in Kathua. It shows relentless resolve of Kathua police to eradicate the menace of drug trafficking in District Kathua.
