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.
Besides four vans carrying the tourists, 10 vehicles belonging to local residents were damaged in the incident that occurred in Ashumugam area of Pahalgam on Monday evening.
According to police, Assistant Town Planner Shail Bala Sharma was killed by Narayani guest house owner Vijay Thakur who allegedly fired four bullets at her inside the establishment in Mandudhar on the Dharampur-Kasauli road, at around 2.33 pm.
The large-scale death of hatchlings has been a setback for the Olive Ridley sea turtles conservation programme as one out of a thousand survives the life cycle to grow into an adult turtle.
