Heroin worth ₹400 cr seized from Pak boat
AHMEDABAD: A Pakistani fishing boat with six crew members and carrying 77 kg of heroin worth around ₹400 crore was apprehended in the Indian waters off the Gujarat coast, officials said on Monday.
The drug seizure was made after Sunday midnight in a joint operation by the Indian Coast Guard and the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS), around 35 nautical miles off the Jakhau coast in Kutch district of Gujarat, they said.
They apprehended the Pakistani
fishing boat ‘Al Huseini’ with six crew members on board in the Indian waters and seized “77 kg of heroin worth approximately ₹400 crore,” Gujarat’s defence PRO said in a tweet in the morning. The boat was later brought to the Jakhau coast for further investigation, he said.
The Gujarat ATS in a release said the Pakistani boat had left the Karachi port and was trying to establish contact using very high frequency (VHF) radio channel and code words, ‘Hari-1’ and ‘Hari-2’, for the delivery of the drugs.
The joint operation was carried out after the ATS received a tip-off that the boat from Karachi was to reach around 35 nautical miles off the Jakhau coast, after crossing the International Maritime Border Line between the two countries, it said.
The boat, belonging to one Shahbaz Ali, left the Karachi port and its crew members loaded the drugs sent to them on a fibre boat at a distance of six nautical miles from the Karachi port.
Preliminary interrogation of the captured Pakistani nationals revealed the heroin was supplied by two Pakistani smugglers, identified as Haji Hasan and Haji Hasam, and according to the tipoff, it was to be delivered to people associated with the underworld in Punjab, the ATS said.
It was to be offloaded somewhere along the Gujarat coast in Kutch, it said. When challenged, the boat’s crew members tried to flee. But, the boat was outmaneuvered and the crew members were forced to surrender by the ICG and ATS team, a defence release said. Despite adverse weather conditions, the boat was thoroughly rummaged and five bags containing approximately 77 kg of heroin were seized. “The market value of the seized narcotics is estimated to be approximately ₹400 crore,” it said.