By Aakanksha Nigam
In a combined operation with the Indian Coast Guard, Gujarat’s Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) has taken 40KG of heroin worth 200 crores from a Pakistani fishing boat off the Gujarat coast.
The six Pakistani crew members who were on board the boat, which was six miles inside Indian waters, have also been detained by the authorities.
Officials claim that a joint team of the Coast Guard and ATS located the drug-carrying fishing boat in the middle of the ocean close to Jakhau Harbour in the Kutch province.
Later on in the day, it is anticipated that the ATS and Coast Guard representatives and the impounded boat will arrive at the Jakhau coast. The officials claimed that after delivering the contraband on the Gujarat coast, it was headed for Punjab.
The State ATS, the Coast Guard, and other agencies have successfully thwarted previous attempts at drug smuggling and apprehended foreign nationals in possession of sizable quantities of narcotics that they intended to smuggle into India via the Gujarat coast. This is because the Gujarat coast has become the preferred route for smuggling drug consignments.
In the past, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and The ATS together with Kolkata Port officials confiscated approximately 40KG of heroin worth 200 crores.
The heroin shipment reportedly arrived in February of this year in a container filled with leftovers from Dubai.
In the case of the drug shipment from Kolkata, the ATS team collaborated with DRI after receiving a tip from its sources about the heroin parcels concealed in gearboxes lying in a container close to the port.
The shipment was delivered by one SSK General Trading LLC of Dubai Bay, according to Gujarat DGP Ashish Bhatia, and according to the records that the agencies have examined after seizing the drug parcels that were expertly concealed in the gearboxes.
When the ATS and DRI representatives opened the container, they discovered 36 gearboxes, 12 of which had white ink markings. When those indicated cartons were opened, 72 heroin packets were discovered.
It should be mentioned that the ATS, along with the Indian Coast Guard, DRI, Punjab Police, NCB, and Delhi Police, has been busting narcotics smuggling via the maritime channel.
It has confiscated a total of over 1300KG of heroin worth 6,800 crores in 2022 through a number of operations in Gujarat, Delhi, and Kolkatta.
