Chandigarh, Oct 5 (IANS) Punjab Police on Wednesday busted a drone-based arms smuggling module with the arrest of two people, including an undertrial.
The arrested have been identified as Jaskaran Singh, lodged at Sub Jail in Goindwal Sahib, and Rattanbir Singh, who is out on bail.
Police recovered 10 foreign-made pistols, including five .30 bore (made in China) and five 9mm (made in the US) along with eight magazines from both of them, besides a mobile phone concealed by Jaskaran Singh in his barrack.
AIG Counter Intelligence, Amritsar, Amarjit Singh Bajwa said Jaskaran Singh was brought on a production warrant in a case pertaining to the NDPS Act, registered in August.
During questioning, he confessed that he was using a mobile phone in jail to contact Pakistan-based smugglers through WhatsApp for smuggling of narcotics and arms and ammunition from Pakistan via drones.
The AIG said for this purpose the accused was taking the help of Rattanbir Singh, who used to retrieve the consignments dropped via drones from different border areas.
Rattanbir Singh is also a co-accused in various NDPS cases with Jaskaran Singh.
Bajwa said one consignment of five .30 bore pistols along with four magazines was recovered from the location revealed by Jaskaran Singh on the Taran Taran-Ferozepur road, where Rattanbir Singh had concealed them.
Unveiling the first set of plans in his Punjab Model with focus on resurrection of Punjab, Sidhu, in the absence of Chief Minister Charanjit Singh Channi and his Cabinet colleagues, told the media here: "Punjab Model is people's model, an effort to give a roadmap to return power to people."
Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri on Tuesday said that he "personally" feels that alliance with the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) in Punjab had cost the BJP heavily.
India on Tuesday recorded 1,68,063 new Covid cases, taking the total tally to 8,21,446. Although the fresh infections were 6.4 per cent less than Monday when the country logged 1,79,723, the weekly positivity rate has climbed to 8.85 per cent and the daily positivity rate has declined to 10.64 per cent. On the other hand, 4,461 Omicron cases were recorded from 28 states.
Delhi reported a 25 per cent surge in Covid-19 cases after recording 19,166 fresh cases. With this, the infection tally has climbed to 15,68,896. Meanwhile, the city has recorded 17 Covid deaths on the second consecutive day, pushing the death toll to 25,177.
On Monday, after a detailed hearing in the matter, a bench, headed by Chief Justice N.V. Ramana and comprising Justices Surya Kant and Hima Kohli, said the court will set up a committee headed by a retired top court judge to probe the PM's security breach and asked both the Centre and Punjab government to not move ahead with their respective inquiries into the matter.
Several Supreme Court advocates on Monday claimed to have received an international call with a recorded message asking the apex court not to help the Central government by taking up a case connected with Prime Minister Narendra Modi's security breach in Punjab last week.
