Arms, explosives smuggling from Pakistan sees upward trend

The Punjab border alongside Pakistan has witnessed an upward trend in the trafficking of sophisticated weapons and explosives apart from drugs, leaving the Punjab Police and various security and intelligence agencies in a tight spot.Despite taking measures to intercept the flying machines carrying drugs and weapons, the smuggling continued unabated even during the escalation of hostilities between the two neighbouring nations in the aftermath of the Pehalgam terror attack.Since January, 220 weapons, including Austria-made Glock and Turkey-made Zigana pistols, have been seized from Amritsar district alone, while the Border Security Force (BSF) seized 74 pistols from the entire Punjab border during the past six months. Forty pistols were also seized from Tarn Taran, it was learnt.

The Amritsar and Tarn Taran border belt is considered the favourite route for trafficking for drones used by the Pakistan-based state and non-state actors.

According to senior police officials, the increased trafficking has directly affected the drug consumption patterns in the border state, apart from aiding gun violence among youths, creating law and order and security concerns in the state.

A senior BSF official said there had been a considerable shift in the border strategy by Pakistan since the new ISI chief took over in September 2024. They are pushing arms and explosives more aggressively in order to destabilise India and aiding operatives of various Pakistan-based terror groups, he said. Also, the use of China-made drones has added a new dimension to the illicit trafficking from across the international border, he said.

“Since January, the pushing of arms into the Indian territory through drones from Pakistan has increased manifold. There has been an increase of around 400 per cent in the past six months compared to the corresponding period last year,” said the official.

Apart from 74 pistols, the BSF had neutralised 129 Chinese drones carrying drugs and weapons, 10.245 kg of RDX, IED and 12 hand grenades from the Punjab frontier.

The Punjab Police DIG (Border Range) Satinder Singh said this was an ever-going fight. “Definitely the upward trend of sneaking of arms and explosives is worrisome. But the BSF and Punjab Police have jointly foiled many nefarious attempts of Pak-based anti-national elements, leading to the regular seizures of weapons,” he said.

Another police official said the trend had shifted as notorious criminals were also “procuring” these weapons from Pakistan-based smugglers shifting from countrymade weapons procured from Madhya Pradesh, UP, Bihar or Maharashtra. A majority of these arms were duplicates, although with better functioning. “These weapons are much better than the countrymade weapons here, but not original as is believed,” he said.