LAHORE – Indian smugglers in connivance with their Border Security Force (BSF) are flooding Pakistan’s Punjab province with liquor and heroin-chemicals as Pakistan Rangers have busted an international racket involved in pushing drugs from India to Pakistan.
The smugglers use various drug tunnels and even managed to smuggle chemicals used for preparation heroin from India to Pakistan through the border gates, supervised and controlled by the BSF, it was reliably learnt here on Thursday.
Well-informed sources further revealed that Pakistan Rangers (Punjab) has already shared this information with Indian BSF during different border meetings held in the recent past.
‘The Punjab Rangers has also handed over dossiers and the details of smugglers of Indian-origin to the BSF top-brass, urging the Indian authorities to stop such attempts from their side of the border’, a source privy to the development told this reporter, conditioning anonymity because he was not authorised to discuss such sensitive issues.
Recently, the Punjab Rangers busted an international drug racket involving smuggling of liquor and heroin from India to Pakistan through the international border.
‘During preliminary investigations, some arrested smugglers confessed to the Rangers that BSF officials took bribe of Rs 5,000 to Rs 6,000 for arranging crossing inside Pakistan from India through the gates’, the sources added.
The Indian smugglers involved in cross border smuggling have been identified as Darshan Singh (Khem Karan), Baldev Pehalwan (Hawalian), Kuldip (Channa), Sukha (Miatan Wala) from Dist Amritsar and Chana Sarpanch (Barekay), and Ibrar Singh (Kaikkey Wali) from Dist Ferozpur.
Most of the international border is covered with fence having 12-ft height including gates at specific distance which are controlled by the BSF.
The smugglers always need BSF assistance to cross through their entry gates, security experts said.
In some cases, they added, the Indian farmers who come for working in the fields across the fence leave smuggled items near the border with the help of BSF men.
In riverine patches at Narowal and Kasur area, where water flows from Indian to the Pakistani side, Indians smuggles unauthorised items with the help of tubes and rafts.
Intelligence sources informed that Indian smugglers also hire locals in border areas including passengers of Samjohata express, Dosti buses and trucks used for trade on Indo-Pak border.
During the last one year, Pakistan Rangers (Punjab) seized 2,758 bottles of Indian liquor, 141-liters of chemical used for preparation of heroin and also arrested 64 Bangladeshi and 16 Indian nationals.
During the interrogation, the arrested persons confessed to the investigators that BSF helped them in crossing over to Pakistan through gates and other specific places.
When contacted, a senior Rangers official said that they had informed BSF authorities a number of times about these practices and involvement of BSF personnel in smuggling but no positive step has been taken so far.
‘The Pakistan Rangers are working with the BSF authorities on this very serious issue. We hope that the Indian high-command would dig out the black-sheep in their ranks and take punitive action against the BSF personnel involved in patronising the smugglers’, the official maintained.
While India is traditionally known as flooding Pakistani territory with water, the Rangers have unearthed the conspiracy whereby India is attempting to flood border region of Punjab with liquor and heroin chemicals.
Two months ago, India had spilled more than 70,000 cusecs of additional water into River Sutlej without prior information to Pakistani authorities and in sheer violation of the Indus water Treaty. The sudden released water led to massive deluge here in the Punjab province and inundated dozens of villages in Kasur and Narowal districts.
No comments:
Post a Comment