India uses ‘drone-narco’ story to justify CASOs, repression in IIOJK
Jammu: In Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir, India’s narrative of a drone dropping narcotics from across the Working Boundary in Samba district is being widely criticized as a recycled propaganda ploy aimed at legitimizing intensified Cordon and Search Operations (CASOs) in the territory.
According to Kashmir Media Service, India claimed that a Pakistani drone crossed the Working Boundary late Friday night over the villages of Kandral, Abtal, and Bahadurpur in the Ramgarh sector, prompting a massive search operation in several forward villages. Indian forces allegedly recovered over 3.5 kilograms of heroin worth Rs 20 crore in international markets and detained two suspected narcotic smugglers for questioning in RS Pura sector.
Observers and local analysts, however, say that such “drone-narco” stories are staged to provide a veneer of legitimacy to intrusive operations targeting Kashmiri civilians. The so-called sightings are repeatedly used as phantom props to justify harassment of residents, random searches, and collective punishment of local communities. By framing the Kashmiri struggle for self-determination as “narco-terrorism,” New Delhi attempts to criminalize a legitimate political movement while obscuring its own failures in governance and security planning.
International human rights bodies, including Amnesty International and UN mechanisms, have repeatedly highlighted the heavy-handed nature of CASOs, documenting arbitrary arrests, harassment of civilians, and violations of fundamental rights across IIOJK. These operations often coincide with manufactured narratives such as alleged drone drops or cross-border smuggling, critics say, designed to distract from widespread repression in the territory.
The analysts have dismissed the latest Samba operation as another “fabricated drone drop fairytale,” emphasizing that such theatrics cannot hide the reality on the ground, where Kashmiri communities live under constant military surveillance and coercion. “The world must look beyond India’s manufactured drama and focus on the systematic human rights abuses in the occupied territory,” said a local human rights observer.
