Pak-based Khalist terrorists smuggling drugs to fuel militancy in Punjab

In a sensational revealing by intelligence sources, Pakistan is using pro-Khalistan Sikh terrorists to smuggle drugs into India via carpet exports to the west and south-east Asia for fuelling militancy in Punjab.

Sources said that Paramjit Singh Panjwar, chief of Khalistan Commando Force, a terrorist orgsation, is based in Lahore since 1994, whereas his wife and two sons live in Frankfurt in Germany.

The nexus has been exposed after massive seizures of drugs shipped from Pakistan by the Coast Guards of the Maldives, Sri Lanka and India in recent months.

Sources said that Pakistan is using neighbouring countries, particularly Sri Lanka and the Maldives to pump drugs into India.

On May 21, the Indian Coast Guard seized 218 kilograms of heroin from a Karachi-registered Pakist fishing boat 'Al Madina' off Jakhau in Kutch district of Gujarat. Six crew members who were carrying the drug in 194 packets were arrested.

Around the same time, the Maldivian police seized an Iran boat with a Pakist national on board on May 26 with a large quantity of drugs.

On July 10, the Sri Lankan Coast Guard (on Indian inputs) seized 50 kilograms of heroin from a Pakist boat in the island nation's Exclusive Economic Zone.

The role of narcotics in funding terror against India was revealed by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) terrorist David Coleman Headley during interrogation in 2010.

Headley, one of the main accused in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks, revealed the role played by the Pakist spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), in linking drug lords and terrorists for transportation of weapons along with drugs to India.

On March 24, 108 kilograms of heroin was seized from an Iran vessel off the coast of southern Sri Lanka.

( With inputs from ANI )