Chandigarh, September 18: The swollen Sutlej and Ravi, their currents faster and wider than in years, have become unlikely highways for smugglers. As Punjab reels from floods, traffickers on the other side of the border have seized the moment, pushing narcotics and weapons across in boats, tyre tubes, even plastic bottles bobbing on the water.
In Tarn Taran, the cost of this covert trade has been measured not just in seizures but in lives. Four men — Nishan Singh of Chhapri Sahib, brothers Malkiat and Gurpreet Singh of Jamarai, and another Nishan Singh from Baghiari — all died this month, their overdoses adding to the district’s grim tally. One of them had injected an oral de-addiction tablet, desperate for a high.
The Border Security Force calls it the first time Pakistani operatives have ferried weapons by boat into Punjab. At Mohar Jamsher village in Fazilka, BSF troops intercepted men rowing under the cover of darkness, seizing 27 pistols and 470 cartridges. A few days later, 16 more pistols and nearly 1,850 rounds of ammunition turned up. Investigators said the smugglers were paid between ₹20,000 and ₹30,000 per pistol, the transactions conducted long before the consignments touched Indian soil.
Floodwaters forced BSF out of several forward posts in Tarn Taran and Amritsar, opening up new stretches of vulnerable riverbank. The police, too, have been racing to plug the gaps. Twenty kilograms of narcotics, packed into tyre tubes, were hauled from the water recently. “Interrogation of smugglers revealed that around 30 kg were trafficked using this method in the past 15 days, of which 20 kg were seized,” said a police officer.
The playbook is not new. Old-timers recall the floods of 2003 and 2023, when the rivers also swelled and smugglers swam across with bundles weighing as much as 70 kilograms strapped to their backs. The water that drowned fields and villages gave cover to clandestine commerce.
Technology, too, is at play. From a smuggler’s phone, police retrieved an audio clip in which Pakistani handlers allegedly plotted fresh consignments. The voices spoke not only of rivers but also of drones — a reminder that smuggling has grown more sophisticated with each passing season.
The human fallout, however, remains painfully familiar. Families in Tarn Taran are left mourning sons lost too soon. And as the police conduct sweeping raids — 359 locations on a single day, yielding heroin, opium, poppy husk, intoxicant tablets, and arrests — the rivers keep running high, their restless waters carrying more than just the flood.
