CHANDIGARH: Punjab Police, in a joint operation with the Border Security Force (BSF) downed three trans-border rogue drones over the last one week and recovered 12 kgs of heroin.

"Tarn Taran Police, working jointly with @BSF_India has downed three trans-border rogue drones in the last one week and recovered 12 kgs #Heroin Major blow to trans-border smuggling networks operating in the international border," Director General of Police, Punjab, Gaurav Yadav tweeted on Friday.

The DGP further informed that the Tarn Taran Police, during its joint search operation with the BSF, recovered a Hexacopter drone which contained 5 kgs of heroin.

"Tarn Taran Police in a joint search operation with @BSF_India have recovered a Hexacopter drone equipped with modern technology & packets containing #Heroin weighing 5Kgs from fields near the Indo-Pak border," the DGP said in his tweet.

BSF Director General Pankaj Singh had previously told ANI that the force, so far this year, had shot down 16 drones, adding that the force has adopted an anti-drone system and in-depth patrolling to take down unmanned aerial vehicles, which pose a security risk.

"While rogue drones have emerged as a new security challenge for the BSF, we haven't yet achieved success with any one mechanism to counter them. Hence, we have adopted three to four ways of dealing with this threat and they have been giving very good results," BSF DG had said.

The DG had further informed that they had installed anti-drone systems at some specific locations (along the India-Pakistan border). "As the border is vast, anti-drone systems cannot be installed at all places. However, the system would be installed at more places in the coming days," Singh said.

Singh added that the BSF has started three-four kms of in-depth patrolling so that anyone trying to collect illegal items dropped by these drones can be caught.

"We have also given very good incentives to our jawans who shoot down these drones. Due to these efforts, we have shot down 16 drones this year till November, which is significantly more than just one drone shot down last year. The number of drones shot down is likely to increase to 25 by the end of this year," he had said.

On November 28, women personnel of the BSF shot down a hexacopter drone weighing 18.050 kg near Chaharpur village in Amritsar (Rural) district in Punjab after it had entered the Indian territory from Pakistan. The drone was carrying 3.110 kgs of narcotics.

Further, the jawans of the Indian Army are also deploying trained Kites to prey on enemy drones in a first-of-its-kind usage of these predator birds.

The jawans are using trained Kites and with dogs for military operations, Army officers said.

It is hoped that such measures will boost the Army's capability to deal with drones sent from across the border to several areas of Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir.