This is the second such seizure in three days.

While a senior officer of Punjab Police’s Special Operation Cell (Counter Intelligence) on Friday claimed to have recovered another drone, allegedly used for dropping a consignment of arms and ammunition from across the Indo-Pakistan border by Pakistan based pro-Khalistani terrorists, a statement by a police spokesperson denied the recovery of the drone.

A government press statement, quoting a police spokesperson issued late in the evening denied that any drone has been recovered on September 27.

“Police teams are also on the job to ascertain the links of the terror groups involved in sending these drones from Pakistan,” said the statement, adding “that so far only two such drones had been recovered — one last month and the second in a burnt condition three days ago in Jhabal town in Tarn Taran district.”

Earlier in the day Mr. Balbir Singh said a police team took one of the accused — Akashdeep to Mohawa village, where the drone was hidden by him. “The accused during the interrogation revealed that he had hidden the drone in Mohawa village near Attari border, after it couldn't fly back to Pakistan as it developed a snag. The drone was recovered under the bushes on the defence drain near the village,” he had said.

The statement, meanwhile, said that investigations so far suggest that several Pak-based terrorist groups were engaged in smuggling weapons into India since August, post the abrogation of Article 370 in Kashmir, and both the recovered drones were apparently sent by different terror groups, linked with the Pak ISI, and the State-sponsored Jihadi and pro-Khalistani terrorist outfits working under its command.

The police had stepped up its vigil at the border after the recovery of a crashed ‘Hexacopter Drone’ on August 13 from Mohawa village in Amritsar district.

“The recovery followed an anonymous call received by Amritsar (Rural) police that a fan type object had been seen in the paddy-fodder fields of a farmer in Mohawa village. On examination, it was found that the model of the recovered drone was ‘U10 KV100-U’, and it had been designed and manufactured by T Motors, a Chinese company. Four brick-sized batteries (model Tattu - made in China) were also found installed in the Hexacopter. The Airframe of the drone was found to be a make TAROT 680 PRO. Enquires revealed that this kind of Hexacopter (6 electric motors) has a payload capacity of 21 kgs and it could have been assembled from parts, which are available commercially-off-the-shelf,” said the statement.

The heightened vigil launched after the recovery of this drone in August led the police on September 22, to bust a terrorist module of the revived Khalistan Zindabad Force (KZF), backed by a Pakistan and Germany based terror group, as it seized a cache of arms and ammunitions, and arrested four suspects from the outskirts of Chola Sahib village in Tarn Taran district. Since then, the police have so far arrested six members of the terror module.