Along Punjab’s border, it’s all about drones

At 11.18 am on January 31, Pishaura Singh, the revenue official of Gilpan, a border village in Tarn Taran district, Punjab, was tying his turban when he heard the sound — a low hum he had trained himself to hear.

“It’s a drone,” he told his wife, stepping outside and pointing his phone camera to the sky.

The UAV, believed to be launched from Pakistan, was flying to his house. It eventually fell near his kitchen garden, barely 700 metres from the iron fencing on the India-Pakistan border. What struck Singh was a blue stamp bearing Urdu letters, possibly identifying the consignment it was carrying – a kg of contraband, including drugs, sealed in two packets.

Singh, a member of the village defence committee formed by the Punjab government to help tackle cross-border smuggling and drones, said, “I called our local police station and the Deputy Superintendent of Police, but they didn’t answer my calls.”

“I eventually called the Senior Superintendent of Police in Tarn Taran, and only then did the local police respond. Later, the BSF [the Border Security Force, whose jurisdiction extends to these parts] also came.”

Nearly 294 Pakistani drones were intercepted by the BSF and other allied agencies in Punjab in 2024

Senior police officers say drones have been ferrying narcotics, weapons and explosives from launchpads deep inside Pakistan’s Punjab into India, often under the cover of darkness. Nearly 300 Pakistani drones were intercepted by the BSF and other allied agencies in Punjab in 2024, 287 in 2025, and around the same number until August this year.

“Drones can be launched from any place, at any time, with very little preparation. We have noted evidence of active Pakistani military participation in helping the smugglers launch these drones through training modules,” said a senior security official.

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In Punjab, the 462-km fence along the international border – or Zero Line – was built mainly in the late 1980s and early ’90s to stop infiltration and smuggling during the militancy years. It is a multi-layered physical barrier, guarded in peacetime by the BSF, with riverine and flood-related gaps.

The fence does not sit on the Zero Line. Under older ground rules, it was meant to stand some 150 yards (less than a km) inside Indian territory. But, in many stretches, it was built much deeper – sometimes two to three km inside the Indian side – leaving large tracts of farmland between the fence and the actual border or Zero Line.

By 1993, most of the feasible land border had been fenced and floodlit.

Senior police officers say drones have been ferrying narcotics, weapons and explosives from launchpads deep inside Pakistan’s Punjab and dropping them across the border in India’s Punjab

This fence – eight to 12 feet high – is topped with multiple rows of concertina/razor wires and, in some places, high-voltage ‘cobra’ wires. A patrol track runs along the fence, which is dotted with observation towers and Border Outposts.

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However, with the incursions now aerial, the fence has largely turned into a modern Maginot line – the heavily fortified line of concrete obstacles and bunkers built by France during World War II which ended up being ineffective because the German army simply went around it.

Now, for the first time, an analysis of data from over 1,200 drones intercepted by multiple security agencies, including the BSF and the Punjab Police, since 2024 has helped map the routes, launch and drop sites, and operating patterns of the drones that are fast emerging as a sophisticated cross-border threat.

The analysis has revealed a disturbing evolution in the drone operations.

What began as relatively simple radio-controlled incursions has transformed into a more technologically resilient enterprise, with modified platforms, anti-jamming capabilities and even satellite-linked systems.

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Despite India employing counter-drone measures, many drones can now detect interference and automatically turn back to Pakistan before coming back, turning this into a relentless cat-and-mouse battle along Punjab’s 550-km international border.

The two primary drone launch pads used by Pakistani smugglers are Jahman and Masteki

Security agencies have identified at least eight key launch pads in Pakistan’s Punjab from where sustained drone sorties take place into India. The two primary pads used by Pakistani smugglers are Jahman and Masteki – two villages strategically located along the international border.

Jahman sits directly across from Khalra sector in Tarn Taran district of Indian Punjab. Further south, Masteki is in Sehjra enclave, a pocket of Pak territory surrounded by India on three sides, positioning the village roughly opposite Khem Karan town in Tarn Taran.

Other Pakistani launch pads are near Kasur, also on the other side of Khem Karan; Qila Jiwan Singh, opposite Rajatal in the Attari sector; Wagah, opposite Attari; and Narowal, on the other side of Dera Baba Nanak, in Indian Punjab’s Gurdaspur district.

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Sources said the data has also revealed the main landing areas in India. “The drones usually fly into the villages of Bhindi Saidan, Attari, Rajatal, Dall, Daleri, Maari Meghaan, Wan and villages around Khemkaran, including Kals and Mastgarh,” said a source.

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Mahawa, in Amritsar, is a kilometre away from the Zero Line, placing its villagers directly in the path of illegal drone incursions.

Of its 2,800 acres, nearly 150 acres lie between the Zero Line and the border fence.

Village defence committee member and farmer union leader Harchand Singh Mahawa said drones frequently travel six kilometres inside the Indian border, flying directly over residential settlements and agricultural lands. “Recently, a drone dropped a consignment on a farmer’s field. He came to us. He was afraid that police might arrest him,” he said.

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The recent security analysis found that drones largely drop their consignment on agricultural fields for couriers to pick it up, but sometimes, they drop the payload on farmhouses or homes due to navigational errors or incorrect GPS data.

The village defence committee in Mahawa assured police the villager who owned the land was the person who informed them about the consignment. “Our role as committee members is to coordinate with the BSF and local authorities when we find stray drones and pistols. We also ensure that innocents are not getting implicated,” said Harchand Singh Mahawa.

Drone launchpads in Pak, drop points in India (‎AI-generated, for high-res image, click here)

In the Mahawa case, the police eventually registered an FIR against ‘unidentified persons’.

In Gilpan, Pishaura Singh – the village defence committee member in whose kitchen garden a drone dropped a kg of contraband – says another drone dropped its payload at the village edge the same evening. “The BSF received the location and moved to cordon the area, but by the time they arrived, men had picked up the drone and the contraband and fled. Many of these drones carry drugs and are responsible for so many youngsters taking to drugs.”

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Known for the retreat ceremony on the Zero Line, Attari is another border village with a population of around 25,000 that witnesses daily flights of drones carrying contraband. Harpreet Singh, the sarpanch, is known for his activism against drugs and smuggling.

He was recently injured, allegedly in an attack by narcotics smugglers. “Villagers informed me about drone activity. I spotted a person at the spot, receiving the consignment from a drone. We caught him, but by then, he had handed the consignment over to someone else. It is a routine affair here,” says Singh.

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A senior security official told The Indian Express that it was around 2019 that Pakistani drones were first noticed in Punjab. The drones then were relatively rudimentary, operating through radio-frequency direction control.

“In 2026, drones with satellite communication and anti-jamming abilities were seen operating in Punjab. Many Pakistani drones now also use Starlink satellite communication to navigate, and some of these have also been downed in Punjab,” the official said.

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Police allege that most drones in use for drug smuggling are of Chinese make, including the DJI Mavic 4 Pro that can do multiple sorties and the DJI Matrice 300 RTK, which is capable of carrying a big payload.

The BSF has equipped its personnel with portable drone interception equipment along the international border in Punjab. And the Punjab government has also procured mobile anti-drone systems mounted on specialised vehicles, including the ‘Baaz Akh’ (Hawk Eye) Anti-Drone System (ADS).

The Rs 51.4 crore Baaz Akh was launched by Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann in August 2025 and was intended to stop cross-border smuggling from Pakistan. With that, Punjab had become the first Indian state to deploy an independent, state-level anti-drone grid as a second line of defence.

The Baaz Akh system focuses on detection, tracking, jamming, and neutralisation, typically disrupting radio frequencies and GPS signals. It has a range of eight to 10 km, automated alerts, and an ability to identify ground control stations. However, officials said, many of these systems do not prove to be as effective since Pakistani drones manage to return to their base even after being jammed.

Punjab government has procured mobile anti-drone systems mounted on specialised vehicles, including the ‘Baaz Akh’ (Hawk Eye) Anti-Drone System (ADS).

“The Pakistanis have equipped their drones with fail-safe ‘return-to-home’ mechanisms. When our systems attempt jamming, locking, or disruption of the control signal, the drones detect the interference and automatically return to their launch point in Pakistan before they can be fully neutralised or recovered on the Indian side,” said a top Punjab Police officer.

Officials said that even in cases where detection succeeds, many of the current anti-drone systems fail against autonomous or resilient drone networks that have features that reduce vulnerability to radio frequency disruption.

Sometimes, the jamming fails because the drones are far away.

Security officers said that far more jamming units – at least 100 – were needed for effective, wider coverage. Sources said the government has planned to expand the system with additional units of anti-drone systems, handheld jammers and vehicle-mounted systems, along with ensuring village committees, CCTVs, and ground nakas keep an eye on the sky.

“It is a layered, human-supported system involving coordination with BSF, police Quick Reaction Teams and ground recovery. Detection alone does not always equal immediate physical neutralisation or seizure without rapid ground response,” an official said.

Security officials say there are other challenges: small/low-signature drones that often go undetected, the potential of drones acting together and coming in swarms using AI and decentralised communication, as well as remote terrain and harsh weather that make some drop zones inaccessible.

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The security analysis found that the drones they captured had an average sortie duration of 45 minutes each, with modified drones having a significantly lower average of around 24 minutes. “For example, one particular DJI Matrice drone had a sortie duration of 42.67 minutes while a DJI Matrice 4 Pro drone had a sortie duration of 15 minutes before it was downed,” one of the sources told The Indian Express. The altitude at which the drones fly also varies – from nearly 500 feet (DJI drones) to 2,500 feet by a modified drone, also called an octocopter.

The data also showed that the highest number of drops usually take place on Thursdays and Saturdays, and the intercepted drones lie some 3.5-10 km away from the International Border. “The maximum drone activity takes place between 10 pm and 4 am at an average of 12 to 15 drones per hour,” said an official.

Pishaura Singh from Gilpan said he has seen drones drop consignments even in the afternoon. “There are villages right on the border, where people are standing in the open, sharing locations, waiting for drops. We have videos of this.”