As drones from Pakistan continue to ferry drugs and weapons into Punjab, the state police have readied “hawai nakas” — aerial barriers designed to shoot down enemy drones.These “hawai nakas”, created through the deployment of three anti-drone systems, form a second line of defence alongside the Border Security Force (BSF), Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said.“Hawai naka” is a term coined to signal the aerial dominance of Indian security agencies.Security forces have recovered 474 drones and seized 777.474 kg of heroin along the Punjab border between 2025 and July 27, 2026, according to Punjab Police and BSF officials. In 2025, 316 drone activities were recorded, leading to the recovery of 313 drones and 385.119 kg of heroin. In the first seven months of 2026 alone, 161 drones have been recovered along with a higher quantity of 392.355 kg of heroin.Punjab shares a 553-km international border with Pakistan, running through Pathankot, Gurdaspur-Batala, Amritsar Rural, Tarn Taran, Ferozepur and Fazilka. While the BSF guards the fence and the zero line, Yadav said the smuggling of contraband was “no longer confined to physical infiltration alone”, with drones increasingly being used to drop consignments for local couriers to retrieve and move within hours. The process, he said, was carried out in seamless coordination with the BSF, the Army and intelligence agencies.The three anti-drone systems, deployed at a cost of around Rs 53 crore, have been installed — two in Tarn Taran and one in Amritsar Rural — covering roughly 210 km across Ferozepur, Tarn Taran and Amritsar Rural. The locations were chosen on the basis of specific intelligence inputs and recent drone activity trends, in consultation with the BSF, the Army and intelligence and counter-intelligence agencies.Besides the anti-drone systems, the second line of defence comprises 64 identified naka points across the seven border districts, of which 28 are functional and manned by 317 personnel, including 238 police personnel and 79 Punjab Home Guards jawans. Fazilka and Ferozepur have the highest number of identified points, with 11 each. Nineteen nakas are jointly manned with the BSF and aligned with its border out posts. Technical surveillance is backed by 87 CCTV cameras at 25 locations on this grid, part of a wider border-area network of 2,336 cameras installed at a cost of Rs 49.58 crore.“It is a constant war, as Pakistani drones imported from other countries are getting better and better, and Indian security agencies are also upgrading themselves to match them,” a police official said.A review of 72 permanent naka points led to the closure of four redundant points in Amritsar Rural and the addition of three new hi-tech nakas. Of the 68 nakas now in service, 65 have been upgraded, taking the compliance level to 96 per cent.“Sixty-four naka points, 317 personnel, 19 joint nakas with the BSF, over 2,300 cameras and three anti-drone systems together form an architecture in which no consignment can travel unchallenged into Punjab,” the DGP said, adding that further anti-drone capability was under active implementation. Separately, Rs 47.97 crore has been sanctioned for 2026-27 to procure UAVs, bomb disposal equipment and bulletproof jackets for the border areas.