The consignment was recovered from BSF border outpost of Jhugian Noor Mohammed in Khemkaran sector in Tarn Taran district, when a team of the SNC was on a visit to the area for the ongoing investigation of a few cases of narcotics. It cache included five pistols of Chinese-make, nine .30-bore magazines and 12 rounds of .30-bore. However, no arrests have yet been made in this regard.

Sources in the SNC said Pakistani drug smugglers wanted to arm their aides in India and instructed to retaliate whenever they were confronted by the security agencies.

“The consignment was most likely meant for the drug smugglers here, who had been feeling low on being thwarted by the security agencies,” said SNC SSP P K Sinha.

He added that one-and-a-half month ago, two head constables of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) were injured when drug peddlers opened fire at their team in Jalandhar. He added that the drug-peddlers also fired at a team of the SNC, when they tried to apprehend them at Ferozepur in November last.

He said the SNC team had recovered 25 kgs of heroin, two AK-56 rifles and Rs 20 lakh from the accused. The SSP said various notorious Indo-Pak smugglers have used Jhugian Noor Mohammed in Khemkaran sector for quite some time and major caches of heroin, fake Indian currency and arms and ammunition have been seized by different agencies in the past too.