Porous Indo-Pak border in Punjab makes it susceptible to drugs smuggling

Wednesday, 13/03/2013

http://www.punjabnewsline.com/news/Porous-Indo_Pak-border-in-Punjab-makes-it-susceptible-to-drugs-smuggling.html

AMRITSAR: It is early morning and village Awan beyond Ajnala on Indo-Pak border is waking up. People are coming out of homes to work in the fields. The river Ravi flows silently. We reach the bank of river unchecked and travel on defence drain without hassles. After night patrolling tired Border Security Force jawans seem to have gone to their barracks and border lay virtually 'abandoned'.

In the afternoon, hot sun simmers. The Ravi flows calm and quite. Apart from distant watchtowers, there is no one to guard borders. With the dusk descending there are sounds of security guards jeeps with their headlights tossing on the uneven paths. The BSF jawans are on prowl and at night there is total silent but for roars of Ravi's water.

The floodlights from the BSF watch towers are making occasional flashes. There is every possibility to avoid BSF patrolling parties and daring smugglers would avail any chance to swim across the water and carry out unlawful activities. These are the riverine areas where the packets or sacks full of heroin are usually thrown from Pak side to India. In Pakistan a kilogram of heroin is around one lakh and once it reaches Amritsar it may fetch Rs.50 lakhs and if taken to Mumbai, Delhi it may fetch Rs. One crore.

So there is lot of money involved and the smugglers are getting their network stronger. Despite fencing (electrocuted at night time), there had been gaps in the border. The most glaring are in the riverine areas falling in Gurdaspur and Amritsar district. At village Ranian where the river keeps changing its course, the fencing usually gets washed away. The gaps emerge and it takes time to be put together and the smugglers use these gaps to smuggle drugs from across the border.

They throw the packets, many confiscated by the security agencies, at specific points and the same is communicated through the mobile phones and their Indian couriers fetch the packets and this is how the smuggling happens in the area. There had been a sudden surge in the smuggling of heroin through this border and when 35 kgs of heroin, largest consignment in near past, was seized in Delhi recently.

Now the 130 Kgs heroinin which the name of Boxer Vijender Singh has figured in too might find its traces to Indo Pak border if the investigations are conducted thoroughly. In last eyar in total 200 kgs of heroin was seized by various agencies including Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, Customs, Special Narcotics Cell, Punjab and even BSF. The huge catche of narcotics in this area are the indication of infamous ``Amritsar drugs route'' getting `alive' again.

During terrorism in Punjab the route was widely used for smuggling in the arms, ammunition, fake currency and narcotics. Then the fence was constructed and it helped contain the militancy but the conventional drugs route remained active till today. The heroin that originates from `Golden Crescent in trouble torn Afghanistan, where cultivation of poppy is ritual, makes way to Pakistan and then to India through this border. From here it takes route to Delhi, Mumbai from where it reaches Middle East and Europe to cater to the great demands abroad.

The use of electronic gadgets, including the mobile phones and reverine topography on the Indo-Pak border, re-grouping of smugglers is adding to the woes of the security forces. ``The smuggling runs into families. Sons follow footsteps of fathers’’, says officials, blaming porous border for rising drugs smuggling adding total drugs smuggling rackets is to the tune of Rs. 5000 crores.