532 kg of heroin seized near Punjab border

The Customs wing has seized a whopping 532 kg of heroin, estimated at nearly Rs 2,600 crores in the international market, from the Attari-Wagh border in Punjab.

The high-priced drugs from Pakistan were stuffed inside multiple bags of rock salt, officials said on Sunday.

Salt bag is the new mode in the list of various methods used by Pakistan drug peddlers in the past to sneak in drugs from across the border.

Raiding officials acted on a tip-off and discovered the huge quantity of heroin, the maximum seizure in recent years.

In the past, customs, police and BSF officials have seized large quantities of heroin stuffed in cavities of water campers, plastic pipes, agriculture tools, shovels etc.

Pakistani drug peddlers have attempted to smuggle heroin by stuffing hallow zone of the vacuum brake cylinders of the goods train going from Pakistan to India.

Punjab shares a 553-km long border with Pakistan. Drugs are often routed through the infamous Golden triangle from Afghanistan and Pakistan and flushed into India.

Cement bags and disguised leather items have also been used in the past by traffickers to smuggle heroin into Punjab.

The most commonly deployed method to push drugs is plastic pipes. These hollow pipes are stuffed with heroin and lobbed over from across the border fence into Punjab.

There have been many instances of involvement of locals on the border side acting as couriers for these consignments.

Custom officials said that as many as 14 gunny bags of rock salt were used to unsuccessfully sneak in the heroin.

Two people, one from Jammu and Kashmir's Handwara and the other from Amritsar, have been arrested.

Punjab is ill-famed for high incidents of drug trafficking. The state also has increasingly high number of drug addicts, many including youth and schoolgoing kids fall prey to the menace.