Drones, Drugs And Deception: Inside ISI’s High-Tech Pipeline Destabilising Punjab’s Borders | Exclusive

Published 2 July 2026 · india

Drones, Drugs And Deception: Inside ISI’s High-Tech Pipeline Destabilising Punjab’s Borders | Exclusive Reported By, Last Updated: July 02, 2026, 16:49 IST To sustain their

Drones, Drugs And Deception: Inside ISI’s High-Tech Pipeline Destabilising Punjab’s Borders | Exclusive Reported By, Last Updated: July 02, 2026, 16:49 IST To sustain their proxy war, the ISI and its long-standing affiliates, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, have fundamentally overhauled their cross-border logistical pipeline A drone after it was gunned down by Border Security Force (BSF) along the India-Pakistan border, near Amritsar. File pic/ANI An explosive investigation by CNN-News18 has laid bare a highly coordinated Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) blueprint that seamlessly interlocks Pakistan’s domestic minority failures with aggressive cross-border destabilisation efforts. Security agencies have decoded how the Pakistani deep state systematically exploits local Sikh grievances while concurrently operating a massive drone-led financial and logistical infrastructure designed to resurrect Khalistan separatism across the Indian border in Punjab. The Domestic Playbook: Strategic Neglect and Exploitation At the core of this dual-track strategy is a cynical cycle of domestic repression and external exploitation. Nationally, Pakistan continues to fail in protecting its historic Sikh shrines. Sacred sites are routinely subjected to systematic neglect, illegal encroachment, and targeted vandalism—vividly illustrated by the recent demolition of a historic gurdwara in Farooqabad.

Security analysts view these acts as a deliberate assertion of Islamic majoritarianism. However, the blueprint truly reveals itself in how the ISI capitalises on the resulting outrage. By weaponising the genuine grief and resentment of the Sikh diaspora over the destruction of their heritage, Pakistani intelligence networks fuel radicalisation narratives abroad, cleverly redirecting this local devastation into a potent recruitment and propaganda tool for the Khalistan movement within India. High-Tech Smuggling: The Drone Pipeline Escalation To sustain this proxy war, the ISI and its long-standing affiliates, including Lashkar-e-Taiba, have fundamentally overhauled their cross-border logistical pipeline. Intelligence reports reveal a staggering escalation in the deployment of advanced, industrial-grade drones engineered to smuggle arms, ammunition, cash, and high-purity narcotics into Indian territory. The hard data provided by border security agencies underscores the terrifying velocity of this aerial threat Exponential Trajectory: Drone-related narcotics cases along the international border in Punjab skyrocketed from a mere three incidents in 2021 to a massive 179 cases in 2024. Record Infiltration: The Border Security Force (BSF) intercepted an unprecedented 257 illegal Pakistani drones in 2024 alone.