Increasing Sub-Conventional Threats Systematically Blunting India’s Conventional Deterrence

Ever since the Indian Army (IA) completed fencing of the 550km-stretch of the Line of Actual Control (LoC) fencing in the Kashmir Valley and Jammu region of Jammu & Kashmir Union Territory on September 30, 2004, terrorist infiltrations across the LoC had been reduced to single-digit levels per annum till 2012. Since then, the bulk of the infiltrations into both J & K UT and northern Punjab have taken place within the Ravi-Chenab corridor, especially along the India-Pakistan Working Boundary (WB) and the Chicken’s Neck area in particular, and along the riverine stretches of the India-Pakistan international boundary or IB (around the Shakargarh Bulge/Salient)—these being the districts of Amritsar, Tarn Taran, Gurdaspur, Pathankot, Fazilka and Ferozepur.

It is now important to understand the various territorial boundary/frontier references. The J & K UT has 734km of LoC running through Jammu, Kashmir and the UT of Ladakh from Kargil to Malu (Akhnoor) in Jammu district, while it has 190km of IB from Malu to Punjab running through Jammu, Samba and Kathua districts. The IB between India and Pakistan spans 2,175km. The WB spans 202km, the LoC spans 797km, and the Line of Actual Contact (LAC)—which India calls the Actual Ground Position Line (AGPL)—from map-grid reference NJ-9842 till Indra Kol—spans 108km. The LoC runs from a place called Sangam close to Chhamb (which lies on the west bank of the Munnawar Tawi River) all the way up north to NJ-9842 in Ladakh, following which the AGPL takes over. The WB lies in Jammu Division between Boundary Pillar 19 and Sangam i.e. between Jammu and Sialkot), which was part of the erstwhile princely state of J & K. It is this stretch that is known in India as the IB, while Pakistan refers to it as the WB, since it maintains that the border agreement (the so-called standstill agreement of August 15, 1947) was inked between the princely state of J & K and Pakistan, and not between India and Pakistan. The Shakargarh Bulge/Salient (which is Pakistani territory) and runs along the IB, is 45km x 45km in size. The bulge joins Indian territory with a 40km distance in between both countries and touches India’s National Highway-1, which is the lifeline of the entire Kashmir Valley. If Pakistan Army (PA) troops manage to get operational in three to four days at the tip of this Bulge/Salient, the NH-1 could be cut of totally, rendering the entire north of India paralysed, as all supplies and winter stocking in the Valley is done by this route, for Indian troops.

Chicken’s Neck is the name given to the territory lying between the two branches of the River Chenab and it is a dagger-shaped salient in J & K that allows the PA an easy access to the bridge at Akhnoor in Jammu, as well as to the Chhamb-Jaurian sector. Measuring about 170 sq km, it is bound by the River Chenab in the west, and by the River Chandra Bhaga, or Ghag Nala in the east. Ferries in Saidpur, Gondal, Majwal and Gangwal areas connect it with the Sialkot sector. Being an open area in the plains, it is excellent for the conduct of swift, offensive manoeuvre warfare by the IA. However, for Pakistan, this area is indefensible by conventional means, as it is surrounded by India from three sides and back in December 1971, was captured by the IA’s 26 Infantry Division within a 48-hour period.

Thus far, since May 2008, three distinct patterns have been noticed with regard to the ways and means employed for covert infiltrations by groups of Pakistani ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists into northern Punjab, the Jammu plains and the Kashmir Valley: infiltration through riverine terrain and along the courses of the rivers and rivulets (nallahs) flowing through Punjab and Jammu; infiltration through underground tunnels dug beneath the WB; and the increasing use of China-made hexaCopters flying over the IB in both northern Punjab and southern Jammu for ferrying in weapons, explosives and narcotics stockpiles.

Infiltration Through Riverine Terrain

Though a large portion of the India-Pakistan border on the 553km Gurdaspur-Jammu sector is fenced, there are several gaps caused by the Ravi River and season rivulets that cut into the IB and WB. Gurdaspur shares a long, zig-zagging border with Pakistan. It is easy to infiltrate from this stretch as compared to the heavily-mined, fenced and guarded LoC. A dense fog in winters makes border surveillance an added challenge. As the border terrain is broken and forested, the rivulet beds provide an ideal cover for terrorists who can sneak in and reach the busy NH-44 highway that snakes along the border. This enables terrorists to hijack vehicles and mount rapid strikes. There are many gaps in the fencing on this stretch because of rivers flowing in and out of India. For example, the Ujjh River enters and exits many times on this stretch. Some of the gaps are as wide as 30 feet. It is not difficult to cross this stretch as the rivers are shallow (with water reaching just above the knee) and large parts of the riverbed are dry. In addition, large gaps due to monsoon floods disrupt the availability of the electrified fencing, which runs along the IB and WB in Punjab and Jammu. Hundreds of metres of fence come down every year and the Sarkanda grass, which springs up after the rains provides infiltrators plenty of cover. In Jammu, the entire Kathua district is profusely drained by numerous ephemeral and small perennial streams, which originate from northern mountainous region and are flowing in a southwestern direction. The perennial River Ravi that is a sub-basin to Indus River along with its tributaries viz Ujjh, Tarnah, Sewa and Bein drains the district. Apart from the major drainage systems, there are a number of seasonal streams (khads) traversing the whole district. They carry huge loads of boulders, pebbles, sand and silt during monsoon. They also generate flash floods immediately after rains, causing extensive damage downstream.

Instances of terror-attacks staged after riverine infiltrations included the terror-attack on the family quarters in the cantonment at Kali Mandi in Samba on May 11, 2008 in which left six people, including a photojournalist, two army jawans and two women dead; the September 26, 2013 terror-attack at 6.45am by a three-man JeM ‘Fidayeen’ squad of the Jaish-e-Mohammad’s (JeM) Shohada Brigade on the Hiranagar Police Station barely 7km from the WB, after the terrorists had commandeered a truck and took to the Pathankot-Jammu Highway and then they opened fire in Samba town against the IA’s 16 Cavalry Regiment in the Mesar area of the Samba-based 168 Infantry Brigade; the attack by a six-member ‘Fidayeen’ squad on December 5, 2014 on the IA’s 12 Brigade HQ at Mohura, Uri; an attack by a two-member ‘Fidayeen’ team on March 20, 2015 on Rajbagh Police Station police in Jammu’s Kathua district, with the recoveries including two AK-47 SLRs (one of them fitted with UBGL), two daggers; 13 hand-grenades; one China-made Star pistol, two UBGL rounds, 12 AK magazines, and one water-floating bag (used for infiltrating via riverine areas after crawling through an 80-metre-long tunnel under farmlands to cross the WB; a two-member ‘Fidayeen’ team striking for the second time in as many days on March 21, 2015 on an IA camp in the Meshwara area of Samba around 5:50am; the July 27, 2015 attack by three ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists on a bus and then attacking the Dina Nagar Police Station in Punjab’s Gurdaspur district; the attack by four ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists on January 2, 2016 at the Indian Air Force’s (IAF) Pathankot air base in Punjab’s Pathankot dfistrict; the attack on September 18, 2016 by four JeM ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists on the IA’s 12 Brigade in Uri sector on September 18, 2016 in which 19 IA soldiers (15 from 6 Bihar Battalion and three from 10 Dogra battalion) lost their lives; the attack on November 26, 2016 by four ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists (four local Kashmiri JeM members, namely Mohd. Ashiq Baba alias Mohd. Ashaq, Syed Munir-Ul-Hassan Qadri, Tariq Ahmad Dar and Ashraf Hamid Khandey, had facilitated a group of three heavily armed Pakistani terrorists—Khalid alias Abu Hissam, Numan and Aadil--and transported them from the WB in the Samba-Kathua sector to Hotel Jagdamba in Jammu and subsequently to Nagrota in their vehicles) on the IA’s 166 Medium Regiment at Nagrota; and the attack by four ‘Fidayeen’ Terrorists on February 10, 2018 on the sprawling camp of the 36 Brigade of the IA’s Jammu & Kashmir Light Infantry before dawn at Sunjwan in Jammu.

Of these, irrefutable forensic evidence of JeM-perpetrated terror-attacks has been garnered from only the July 27, 2015 and January 2, 2016 terror-attacks. Regarding the former, data shared by the US Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) with India’s Union Ministry of Home Affairs (UMHA) under the auspices of the Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty (MLAT) has revealed that the ‘Fidayeen’ unit had been stationed in the town of Gharota (in Shakargarh), facing Bamiyal. Forensic analysis by the FBI of the Garmin GPS navigation locator device used by the terrorists showed that the device was first fed with data on July 21, 2015 at Sargodha, a town 94km from Faisalabad. The data also showed that the terrorists had departed from a safe-house on the fringes of Gharota.  On the intervening night of July 26 and 27, they penetrated the IB near Alowal where the Ravi River makes a series of sweeping bends and then, travelling due east, they crossed a tributary of the Ravi River and reached Bamiyal town. From there, they caught an early morning bus that took them to the NH-1A highway, which links Punjab with J & K and on to Hiranagar, passing several Punjab State Police checkpoints along the way and eventually arrived at Dinanagar town, which is just 12km from the IB, 25km from Jammu and 235km from Chandigarh. Dinanagar is also on the 1,526km-long NH-15 that connects Pathankot in the north and Samakhiali in Gujarat. The retrieved pre-programmed GPS waypoint navigation data revealed that the terrorists had three targets. The first was the Dinanagar-Pathankot railway track on which five IEDs were subsequently found strapped. Dinanagar Police Station, where the encounters took place resulting in the terrorists being killed, was the second on the hit list. The terrorists were expected to eventually proceed to the high-profile targets of bungalows of the District Magistrate and the SP in the Civil Lines area of the town for what could have been a deadly climax. India had approached the FBI to help identify the Night Vision Device (NVD) used by the three terrorists.

The JeM terrorists who struck at the air base in Pathankot in the early hours of January 2, 2016 had entered the defence installation during the afternoon of January 1 and had spoken in Multani dialect, commonly used in the districts of Multan, Lodhran and Bahawalpur in southern Punjab region of Pakistan. Items recovered included a China-made wireless set similar to the one recovered from Rajbagh Police Station on March 21, 2015, and US Army-issued binoculars. The FBI supplied the cellphone call details of two numbers: 92-3017775253 and 92-3000597212. One of the first calls made by the terrorists to 92-3000597212 was at 9.12pm on December 31, 2015 from a location near the air base. In all, the FBI handed over evidence, comprising more than 1,000 pages of chats and conversations between the JeM’s handler Kashif Jaan and the four ‘Fidayeen’ who were eventually killed (identified as Nasir Hussain from Punjab, Abu Bakar from Gujranwala and Umar Farooq and Abdul Qayum from Sindh). The documents also included Kashif Jaan’s conversations with other Pakistan-based JeM office-bearers, apart from other exchanges over a period of time. Apart from chats on WhatsApp and other platforms, Jaan was using a Facebook account connected to the same mobile number that the attackers had called from Pathankot after abducting Punjab police SP Salwinder Singh. The terrorists had also called another number in Pakistan connected to a Facebook account of ‘Mulla Daadullah’. These accounts, operated by Jaan, were accessed before and around the time of the terror-attack using IP addresses of Pakistan-based telecommunications service-providers (Telenor and Pakistan TeleCommunications Company Ltd). These Facebook pages also contained jihadi material and videos and comments condemning the arrest of JeM cadres in Pakistan. The terrorists had also called numbers connected to Al-Rahmat Trust—the JeM’s financial arm.

Infiltrations Via Tunnels Dug Beneath WB

As far as infiltrations using tunnels dug beneath the WB go, the first such tunnel was uncovered on July 28, 2012 by the Border Security Force (BSF), which was constructed about 25 feet deep in the Samba sector. It was detected after an area caved-in near the border fencing. It had been dug out between two sides along the WB on India’s Chillayari BoP and Pakistan’s Lumberiyal BoP. It had air-supply through a 2-inch pipe. The tunnel was discovered accidentally by a farmer of Chachwal village on the evening of July 27 while working in his fields, when he saw the land sunk at three straight points due to monsoon rains. A joint team of the Geological Survey of India (GSI) and BSF later unearthed a total length of about 540 metres of the tunnel dug into the Indian side from the Zero Line (where the boundary pillars lie) and reportedly found its exit point about 500 metres short of Chechwal. On May 2014, the BSF found a caved-in portion of another tunnel in Chillyari border belt in Samba district, which was found 23 metres inside Indian territory. On August 2014, a tunnel, which was approximately 130 to 150 metres in length along the WB and had originated on the Pakistan side, was discovered in Jammu’s Pallanwala sector. On March 4, 2016, a 10 feet-deep tunnel was found concealed by elephant grass (Sarkanda) in the Ranbir Singh Pura sector near Allah Mai De Kothey BoP. On February 13, 2017, a tunnel dug underneath the WB was discovered in the Ramgarh sector. On September 30, 2017, the BSF unearthed a 14-feet-long tunnel in the Arnia sector of Jammu. The unfinished tunnel approximately had a length of 14 metres, height of three feet and two-and-a-half-feet width on the slope of bank at Dhamalla nulla (stream) ahead of the border fence. Items recovered from the location included a US-made compass, two magazines, 60 rounds of ammunition, a hand-grenade, and other items and most of these items were carrying the marking of Pakistan. On July 13, 2018, a 30-metre-long tunnel was uncovered BSF in the Ranbir Singh Pura sector of Jammu district. The tunnel was approximately 10 feet below the ground and had a length of 30 metres. Five JeM operatives, including the perpetrators of the February 14, 2019 Pulwama terror-attack, had crossed over to India in April 2018 using this tunnel. On August 27, 2020, the BSF detected the latest trans-border tunnel in the Samba sector’s Basantar area. The approximately 20 feet-long and three-four feet wide tunnel was 25 feet underground. Pakistan-made sandbags with Shakargarh/Karachi written were also found at the mouth of the tunnel to hide it. The place of opening of the tunnel was around 170 metres from the WB towards the Indian side in the field of a local farmer. A BSF patrol had detected the tunnel 50 metres from the border fence on the Indian side. The nearest Pakistani BoP is about 400 metres from the tunnel.

Terror-attacks staged by ‘Fidayeens’ who had entered India through such tunnels included the attack by two terrorists on October 3, 2016 on two adjoining camps of the IA’s 46 Rashtriya Rifles and the BSF’s 40 Battalion at Baramulla, following which a A GPS navigation locator and a compass were recovered from the slain terrorists; an attack on April 27, 2017 by a two-member ‘Fidayeen’ squad against an IA garrison at Panjgaon of Chowkibal in Kupwara district; an attack on August 26, 2017 by a three-member ‘Fidayeen’ squad against the District Police Lines in Pulwama district; an attack on the Lethpora CRPF camp in South Kashmir’s Pampore village in Pulwama district on December 30, 2017, in which four JeM terrorists—two of them Pakistanis—were killed during the 36-hour-long gunfight along with locals Manzoor Ahmad Baba, and Fardeen Ahmad Khanday; the attack on a BSF camp outside Srinagar Airport on July 13, 2018 (a similar attempt by three JeM ‘Fidayeen’ terrorists was thwarted by the security forces on October 3, 2017; the August 2018 attack by three JeM Fidayeen members on the J & K Police Station in Pulwama.

These terror-squads were all transported to the hinterland of J & K UT by local facilitators using their own vehicles. However, quite a few of them were successfully intercepted as well. For instance, on September 13, 2018 three JeM ‘Fidayeens’ who had crossed the WB via Tarnah Nallah and were picked up in Samba were killed in an encounter in Reasi district a day after they fired on a Police party and escaped. After several hours of gunfire, the three men were neutralised. The forces attempted to capture the third terrorist alive, but he was killed too. Truck driver Riaz Ahmed of Pulwama district and his helper Mohmmad Iqbal of Budgam, who were arrested when the three terrorists were intercepted at the Domail-Jhajjar Kotli highway belt, later admitted that they had helped the JeM five times in the past when it came to smuggling Fidayeen squads inside trucks. A cordon-and-search operation (CASO) to track down the JeM terrorists was launched in the Jhajjar-Kotli forest belt in Reasi district after the firefight with the Police. It was late on the night of September 12 when an informant informed the local Military Intelligence (MI) unit that the terrorists were possibly inside a house in Tirthi village. The two to three houses that are part of Ward No.6 in Tirthi belong to people from a minority community. What raised suspicion was the crying and unusual noises coming from the houses. The local MI unit assessed the input and advised contacting a nearby security forces (SF) column, which issued the CASO. The SF team nearest the house was contacted and shown a path to the exact two-three houses. Once the security team crossed a narrow nallah and started moving towards the houses, terrorists from one of the houses started firing at the SF party. It was later discovered that the terrorists who were on the move forcefully took refuge in a house owned by Ishwar Dass, a former serviceman in Ward No.5 of Jhajjar Kotli. The terrorists came at around 8pm demanding clothes to change from their combat dress. They also demanded food and water and left around 9.10pm. They soon moved to another residence in Ward No.6. According to MI, a group of four to five terrorists had infiltrated past the Lam-based Battalion of the IA’s 80 Infantry Brigade in Naushera on the night of September 2. The group travelled in a vehicle till the outskirts of Naushera. On September 4, 2018 they were sighted by some school students at Langar, after which a search operation was launched by J & K Police and the IA. Once the terrorists were detected, they ran out of options and cancelled their plan to head towards Naushera city. In order to avoid being detected, they moved along Jambhir Nallah and reached Bareri. Five days before the encounter they were spotted and another search operation was swiftly launched following inputs of suspicious movement in Bareri. It is most likely that the group had considered travelling to Lamberi in a vehicle. On September 9, 2018 the group was reported to be in Lamberi and was waiting for the guide to take them up to Mohar. The exact location of the group was reported by human intelligence (HUMINT) and another search operation was launched. During the search, the group got split into two sub-groups. One of these sub-groups comprising two terrorists with a cellphone was able to escape the cordon, leaving behind a sub-group of three that had no cellphone, but radio sets. The cordon was lifted by the evening of September 10. Security forces put up stops at roads leading towards Kalakot and Naushera. An urgent assessment was conducted as it was suspected that by this time the group had started moving towards Nihari Tawi River. However, it is believed that the group of three had left the place by then. Based on an intercept received, it was assessed that the sub-group would have boarded a vehicle for Jammu. Another intercept suggests that they were instructed to move towards the IA’s 10 Infantry Division HQ. After reaching Jammu on January 12 morning, the group boarded a civil truck with the number plate JK-03F-1476 and paid Rs.20,000 to the driver to ferry the armed men ahead. The group was next sighted at a Dhaba. The truck was subsequently intercepted at a ‘Nakka’ near Jhajjar Kotli, which finally led to the terrorists’ being slain. But the J & K Police gave another assessment. According to it, the infiltration took place on the night of September 11 between Kathua and Samba. The terrorists reached the National Highway near Chal Dayala and were picked up by a truck. On September 12 at about 8am in the morning a J & K Police party signalled a truck with the number plate JK-03F-1476, which was on its way from Jammu to Srinagar, to stop. The three terrorists who were boarding the truck opened fire. The truck driver was the brother to one of the dead terrorists and was an OGW himself. The truck took them ahead as a new bus driver and conductor took over the vehicle near the Bann Toll Plaza. Then they stopped at Jhajjar-Kotli to have breakfast when a J & K Police cop came to check the truck as part of a routine practice. The terrorists panicked, opened fire and fled the spot. Security forces then used drones and helicopters during the operation to track the three JeM terrorists who were between the ages of 18 and 22 years.

On September 12, 2019 four AK-56 and two AK-47 rifles along with six magazines and 180 live rounds were seized after the J & K Police intercepted a truck at 8am on the Jammu-Pathankot Highway near the Punjab-J & K border in Lakhanpur and arrested three residents (who belong to Pulwama and Budgam districts) of J & K. The truck was on its way to Kashmir from Bamiyal.

On January 31, 2020 three JeM ‘Fidayeens’ had entered from the WB in Hiragnagar in Kathua district 56km east of Jammu and were on their way to the Kashmir Valley by hiding inside an L-shaped cavity of a truck (JK-03F-1478) laden with goods. They were caught at the Bann Toll Plaza at Nagrota and were carrying one Colt M-4 carbine, AK-47 assault rifles, armour-piercing steel core ammunition, IEDs, grenades, pistols, satellite phone, wireless communication system, and a GPS navigation locator. The J & K Police nabbed Sameer Ahmed Dar alive from the encounter site. He is the cousin of the February 2019 Pulwama suicide-bomber Adil Dar. He had managed to establish links with the JeM on WhatsApp by using a virtual private network (VPN) that allows users to circumvent internet censorship to secure connections to the sites an individual wishes to access. It was through WhatsApp that Sameer was directed by the JeM in Pakistan. Sameer is a Master in Geology from Kashmir University. On receipt of the message from JeM, Sameer took his two aides in a truck to Basantar Nallah in Samba sector on the intervening night of January 30-31. He waited at a pre-decided pick-up point and moved towards the Valley after receiving the three JeM terrorists. In December 2019 Sameer had transported a group of three JeM terrorists. An OGW, Shoaib Wani from Karimabad in Pulwama had received those terrorists. One of the three was killed in Pari Tral area of Awantipora along with Qari Yasir. His truck was used to do a legal business transaction like transporting fruits. In December, the truck went to Delhi carrying an apple consignment and on return carried back pomegranates. As soon as Sameer entered Punjab, he used his WhatsApp freely. This is when the GPS coordinates were shared.  In December, with no access to the internet, the plotting was done in Punjab. On return, the terror module would use Google Maps. On dropping the consignment of pomegranates, Sameer picked up large packets of wall-putty. This was used to camouflage the presence of the JeM terrorists inside the cavity of the truck. Towards January-end, the same modus operandi was used. The truck went to Jaipur in Rajasthan and on return, came near the WB.

Infiltrations By HexaCopters

The usage of HexaCopters began last year following the Khalistan Zindabad Force’s (KZF) Pakistan-based chief Ranjeet Singh alias Neeta and his Germany-based associate Gurmeet Singh alias Bagga conducting nearly a dozen supply sorties. On March 11, 2019 the BSF shot down a HexaCopter in the Fazilka sector. One drone was recovered on August 13, 2019 and it was a crashed HexaCopter carrying 21kg payload in Mohawa village of Amritsar district—a mere 1.5km from the IB. The drone model U10 KV100-U, and it had been designed and manufactured by China-based T Motors. The airframe of the drone was called TAROT 680 PRO. Four brick-sized batteries (model Tattu-Made in China) were also found installed in the Hexacopter. Another HexaCopter (out of three) was seized in the burnt condition in September from Jhabal town in Tarn Taran. They were used for ferrying in five AK-47s (along with 16 magazines and 472 rounds of ammunition), four China-made .30 bore ‘Star’ Pistols (along with eight magazines and 72 rounds of ammunition), nine hand-grenades, five Thuraya satellite phones along with their ancillary equipment, two cellphones, two wireless sets and FICN with face-value of Rs.10 lakh—all of which were air-dropped in Rajoke. Between September 9 and 16, 2019 HexaCopters were used for ferrying almost 100kg of arms and ammunition into Punjab. The foreign handlers, Gurmeet Bagga of Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF), and his terrorist associates based in Pakistan, including KZF chief Ranjeet Singh Neeta, who were handling the Indian Punjab-based Akashdeep terror module, had informed Akashdeep and his associates about the crashing of this drone inside Indian territory. They had also shared the coordinates of the crash landing site and further directed Akashdeep to go to the crash site and destroy the drone by burning lest the Punjab Police came to know about it.

On September 22, 2019, the Punjab State Police successfully wound-up the India-based module of this operation, which was active in the Husseiniwallah, Tarn Taran, Ajnala, Fazilka and Khem Karan areas of Punjab. The HexaCopters with 10kg payloads had been flown for almost 7km from their launch-pads at a height of 2,000 feet to deliver their payloads. On both October 7 and 8, 2019 a HexaCopter originating from Pakistan was detected flying over two villages in the Hussainiwala area of Punjab. On October 10, 2019, HexaCopters were cited in two locations in Punjab. The first sighting was reported in Hazarasingh Wala village at 7:20am and later in Tendiwala village at 10:10pm. On January 27, 2020, a HexaCopter flown from Pakistan was shot down by the BSF in Arnia sector, while on June 20, 2020, BSF troops shot down a HexaCopter carrying one M-4 carbine, two loaded magazines (60 rounds), and seven China-irigin hand-grenades near the WB in Jammu’s Kathua district. The HexaCopter was spotted hovering in the vicinity of BoP Pansar around 5.10am by a BSF patrol party, which then shot it down 250 metres inside Indian territory.

One of the major India-based narco-terrorism modules, headed by former IA Naik Rahul Chauhan, was involved in carting 75kg of pure heroin and at least seven pistols between November and December 2019. The module, operating from the Jat Regiment Centre in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly, was busted on January 9, 2020. According to Chauhan’s interrogation report, a Pakistani national named Waqar got in touch with him when he was running surveillance drones for the IA in the Naushera sector in July-August 2019. Chauhan was later contacted by another source, identified as Choudhary, over a WhatsApp call from a Germany-based number, and a meeting was set up with Choudhary’s associate in Ambala. During interrogation, Chauhan admitted to operating drones from the border villages of Dhanoa Khurd and Mulaekot to pick up heroin and pistols from Pakistan. He used three drones purchased from Chandini Chowk (Delhi), Ghaziabad and Pune, and made cross-border sorties at the height of 1,200 feet on November 27 and 30, and then on December 8, 9 and 17, 2019. These sorties were made from border villages between 3am and 4am to avoid detection, and the distance covered from the launch area to the pick-up point in Pakistan was between 2.2km and 2.8km, with flying times generally between 14 and 18 minutes. Data gathered from the captured drones showed that the last flight on December 19 was 26 minutes, 54 seconds long. Further investigation revealed that the money used to buy the drones was provided by convicted drug smuggler Lakhwinder Singh (in Amristar Jail since September 2019), and his associates Ajaypal and Dharminder.