Chandigarh, July 5 : Amid the ongoing drive to make Punjab a safe and secure state, Punjab Police's Counter Intelligence (CI), Amritsar, has busted a cross-border narcotics smuggling module with links to Pakistan and arrested four of its operatives after recovering 5 kg heroin from their possession, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav here on Saturday.

Those arrested have been identified as Resham Singh, a resident of Dhanoe Kalan in Amritsar, Gurpinder Singh, a resident of Dhanoe Kalan in Amritsar, Rooppreet Singh, a resident of Sehnewali in Amritsar and Shubhkar Manjit Singh, a resident of Sehnewali in Amritsar. Apart from recovering 5 kg heroin, police teams have also impounded their Mahindra Thar vehicle and a motorcycle being used for transporting the consignment.

DGP Yadav said preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused were acting under the directions of a Pakistan-based smuggler identified as Kaka, a resident of Dyal in Pakistan, who has been using drones to drop narcotic consignments from across the border. The accused were further delivering the narcotics consignments to other parties in the state, he said.

Sharing operation details, the DGP said teams from Counter-Intelligence, Amritsar, received specific intelligence about the retrieval of narcotics consignments by some individuals from near the Indo-Pak border area falling near Dhanoe Kalan village in Amritsar.

Acting swiftly, police teams intercepted four people from Attari to Pull Kanjari road in Amritsar when they were going to deliver the consignment on their vehicles and recovered heroin consignment from their possession, he said, adding that further investigations are underway to uncover the network's backward and forward linkages in this case.

More arrests and recoveries are likely in the coming days, he said. A first information report has been registered under Sections 21, 25 and 29 of the NDPS Act at the Police Station State Special Operation Cell in Amritsar.

/IANS