Amritsar: More than 120 pistols, two AK-47 assault rifles, an M16 rifle and five hand grenades have been recovered in the Amritsar border belt over the past 33 days, according to a report published by The Tribune on November 3 and carried by Punjab Khabarnama and Navroze. The tally — drawn from Punjab Police and other agency operations — is the clearest measure yet of how much weaponry is moving through one stretch of the India–Pakistan border, alongside the heroin trade it accompanies.
The component operations behind the tally are specific. In one, Amritsar Commissionerate Police arrested four people, including two juveniles, and recovered 16 pistols and seven cartridges. In another, Amritsar Rural Police arrested seven people, including serving Army personnel, and recovered 14 pistols along with 20.130 kg of heroin — a case that has drawn attention precisely because of that combination of soldiers, weapons and narcotics, though the reports read do not detail the Army personnel's alleged roles. On Sunday, the Rural Police arrested four more people in separate incidents and seized five pistols: the Gharinda police arrested Amritpal Singh of Naushehra Pannuan in Tarn Taran and Harpartap Singh of Chavinda village, while the Rajasansi police arrested Jagdev Singh of Ballia village and Akashdeep Singh of Rane Kale village; three pistols and a combined 273 grams of heroin were recovered in those incidents. In a separate incident, Gharinda police recovered 550 grams of heroin, a pistol and a damaged drone from Rorawala Kalan, a border village in Amritsar district, and the Border Security Force recovered a pistol near the Rania border outpost.
The earlier operations inside the 33-day window are of the same pattern. On October 16, the Counter Intelligence wing in Amritsar arrested five people and recovered 13 foreign-made pistols, two hand grenades and an assault rifle; police said preliminary investigation indicated the accused were allegedly in contact with a foreign-based smuggler and were retrieving drone-dropped consignments. On October 4, police arrested a truck driver and recovered an AK-47 rifle, nine cartridges and two hand grenades; investigators said the accused was allegedly connected to foreign-based smugglers. Punjab Police's own recent releases fit the same picture: on October 30, Amritsar Commissionerate Police busted three drug-trafficking and illegal-arms networks with eight arrests, 11 pistols and 2.293 kg of heroin, and on November 1, Counter Intelligence Amritsar arrested two men with 5 kg of heroin near the Mudhal Bypass — both already reported by this site as individual operations.
The narcotics side of the ledger is growing faster than the weapons side. According to BSF figures published in October, more than 850 kg of heroin was seized along the Punjab frontier in the first nine months of 2026, compared with 415 kg in the whole of 2025 — a doubling that frames every individual bust in this tally.
What is allegation and what is fact: the recoveries, arrests and quantities above are as reported from police and BSF operations. The claim that the consignments are sent by handlers based in Pakistan, dropped by drones and collected by local couriers is what investigators suspect and what police say the accused were allegedly linked to; whether the separate seizures belong to one network or several, and whether any recovered weapon was used in a specific attack, has not been established in the reports read, and none of the accused named has been convicted in these cases.
Why it matters: Amritsar's border belt is where Punjab's drug war and its gun problem meet. A single month producing military-grade rifles and grenades alongside heroin — including arrests that reach serving soldiers and juveniles — is the scale of flow that the state's 'Yudh Nashian Virudh' campaign is up against, and it will test whether surveillance and coordination between Punjab Police and the BSF can move from recovering consignments to breaking the networks that send them.