Gujarat has a coastline that helps in boosting trade and commerce have now made way for India’s biggest drug bust. Heroin worth over Rs 9,000 crore was seized by Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS), Gujarat.
Indian Coast Guard (ICG), Marine Police, Gujarat Police along with Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) intercepted a ship at Mundra port in Kutch, which had two containers that had been ‘mis-declared as talcum powder’ but had been trying to smuggle heroin in the country from Afghanistan via Iran ports.
According to the officials, they were tipped off and found such a large quantity of talcum powder being imported as suspicious. Upon intercepting the containers, heroin was found buried under the packets of talcum powder. And officials weighed the heroin over the course of two days, which came up to 2988.22kg with the approximate valuation of the drugs being Rs. 7 crore per kilogram.
State Home Minister Harsh Sanghvi visited ATS and said that he had come to thank the ATS on behalf of the people of Gujarat. “Gujarat ATS team is efficient. More than 30 kg of heroin was recently seized by the ATS in a 72-hour-long operation. Seven Iranian nationals were also detained. The recent arrest of notorious terrorist Ashraf Nagori was also a significant achievement of the ATS. Ashraf had been absconding for a long time and the ATS had achieved great success in capturing him from Maharashtra.”
He said the state government would provide all possible help to make the ATS stronger. The operation lasted for 72 hours in the international waters of India-Pakistan near Porbandar. He congratulated state police chief Ashish Bhatia and Gujarat police.
Later, Gujarat ATS DYSP Bhavesh Rojiya said that 30 kg of heroin was seized by the agencies. The drugs were found in the sea 185 nautical miles from Porbandar–with Iranian and Pakistani drug mafia.
It is suspected that the crew members carried the drugs by land from Afghanistan to Iran and then from Iran ports to Gujarat ports. There is a rise in cases of heroin smuggling and investigation is on in the terror funding angle with respect to the instability in Afghanistan as well.
