Four held with 47.3 kg heroin, three pistols in Faridkot

Four people were held with 47.3 kg of heroin and three pistols in Faridkot.

The arrests came from a checkpoint by the CIA Faridkot team.

Fifteen cartridges and two vehicles were also seized.

The accused are from Ferozepur district.

An FIR has been registered at Sadiq police station.

The four occupants of the car were apprehended, and the heroin and weapons were found during the search.

All four accused are residents of villages in Ferozepur district.

According to police, the gang received consignments of heroin and weapons dropped by drones from across the border in the border areas of Fazilka and Ferozepur.

The gang then supplied the consignments further within Punjab, police said.

An FIR has been registered at Sadiq police station in Faridkot.

Investigators are working to establish the forward and backward linkages of the network.

Punjab, which shares a long border with Pakistan, has seen repeated drone-dropped drug and weapon consignments in border districts.

Police recoveries of this kind are typically followed by questioning of the accused to trace the suppliers across the border and the buyers within the state.

The accused are yet to be tried, and the allegations against them remain to be proved in court.

The recovery included both narcotics and firearms, which police say shows the gang handled more than one kind of illegal consignment.

Baba Farid Agman Purab is a major annual religious event in Faridkot, and police step up checking in the district ahead of it.

Ferozepur and Fazilka, the districts named in the case, lie on the border with Pakistan.

Crime Investigation Agency units in Punjab districts focus on organised crime and narcotics cases.

The Faridkot Police arrested four operatives of a cross-border smuggling network and seized 47.3 kg of heroin.

They also recovered three pistols, three magazines, 15 cartridges and two vehicles.

Raj Mahal palace, Faridkot (representative image), Wikimedia Commons, public domain