Photo: Adam Jones from Kelowna, BC, Canada / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.0
Punjab Police said on November 5 that Amritsar Rural units had broken up several illegal arms, explosives and drug networks, arresting 16 people and recovering two Israeli-made Uzi submachine guns, two hand grenades, five pistols, 26 live cartridges and 34 kg of heroin.
Inspector General of Police (Border Range) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said the two 9-mm Uzis were the first of their kind seized in the state. The recovery from three suspects in the Kot Khalsa area on November 4 formed part of a wider crackdown supervised by Senior Superintendent of Police (Amritsar Rural) Kanwalpreet Singh Chahal.
Foreign handlers and intended use
Preliminary investigation, police said, suggested the accused were in contact with foreign-based handlers who were helping supply illegal weapons for distribution among criminal elements in Punjab. Bhullar said the handlers were directing local associates to stockpile arms and explosive material.
For the first time in Punjab, two sophisticated Israeli Uzi submachine guns have been recovered.
Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, IG Border Range
According to the police account, the weapons and explosives were allegedly meant for terror activity, targeted killings or gang rivalries. Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said the same operations also helped solve three firing cases linked to the illegal arms supply chain in the region.
Heroin haul across Amritsar Rural stations
The 34 kg of heroin came from several recent seizures in the Gharinda and Lopoke police station areas, including about 10 kg recovered with two accused on October 29, roughly 10 kg more on November 3, a smaller one-kilogram find, and 13 kg tied to an older Lopoke case, police said. Five illegal pistols and the live rounds were recovered alongside the narcotics and automatic weapons.
Separate FIRs have been registered at the Gharinda, Beas, Mehta, Lopoke and Chatiwind police stations. Officers said they were tracing both the supply and distribution ends of the networks to identify remaining handlers, suppliers and intended recipients.
Why it matters
Amritsar sits on the India-Pakistan frontier, and Border Range units have repeatedly flagged drone drops and overseas handlers feeding arms and narcotics into Punjab’s gangster-terror ecosystem. The appearance of Uzi-class submachine guns, if the police assessment holds, marks a jump in the firepower available to local modules that have so far relied more on pistols and assault rifles.
The state government has run parallel drives against drugs and organised crime. Police said further investigation would focus on financial trails and overseas contacts. No court findings have yet confirmed the foreign-handler claims, which remain based on the preliminary probe.
What happens next
Investigators said they were mapping backward and forward linkages from the 16 arrests. The three solved firing incidents, police added, underline how the same pipelines that move heroin and grenades can feed street shootings in Beas, Mehta and Chheharta. Charges under the Arms Act and the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act are expected as the FIRs progress.
