The Punjab Police on Monday claimed to have seized 11 hand grenades dropped by a suspected Pakistan drone, which was engaged and shot at jointly by police and Border Security Force (BSF) personnel close to the border in Gurdaspur district on Saturday night.
DGP Dinkar Gupta said the Punjab Police mounted a search operation immediately after receiving information from the BSF about drone movement across the Indo-Pak border in Gurdaspur district. BSF personnel deployed at BOP Chakri in the Gurdaspur sector had noticed a Pak drone entering Indian territory around 11:30 pm, and BSF troops immediately fired multiple shots in an attempt to bring down the drone.
A search and combing operation was mounted in the area on Sunday morning, leading to the recovery of a plastic box containing 11 Arges-84 Hand grenades. Austrian in nature, the Arges Type HG 84 series anti-personnel fragmentation hand grenade, is a conventional hand grenade system designed to inflict massive damage against soft targets within its blast radius, spraying shrapnel out to a distance of 30 meters at speed, said the DGP, adding that the drone was however not recovered and it is suspected that it managed to fly back into Pakistan territory after dropping the recovered payload.
A case under sections 3, 4, 5 of the Explosive Substances Act has been registered at PS Dorangla, district Gurdaspur, and further investigations are in progress, said Gupta.
