Pakistani boat with 40 kg drugs worth Rs 200 crore seized off Gujarat coast

In the recent past, the Gujarat ATS has helped various agencies recover large quantities of heroin

Amid the opposition Congress and AAP criticising the ruling BJP over seizure of large quantity of drugs in the state and terming the state as a "hub of drugs", the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) in a joint operation with the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) have apprehended six Pakistani nationals and recovered 40 packets of contrabands suspected to be heroin weighing over 40 kg, whose international value is said to be about Rs 200 crore.

ATS officials said that this year alone, 22 Pakistani including the six have been arrested in as many as seven cases which resulted in seizure of 1228 kg of heroin worth over Rs 6,000 crore.

Soon after the seizure, minister of state for home, Harsh Sanghvi in a veiled attack said, "a Nigerian national has been found to be involved in the drug racket who was operating from jail with the help of Punjab administration...I can understand that the way Gujarat police is busting the drug network in Punjab state from Gujarat, it will pain many people. I want to ask anyone from Punjab who comes here and makes statements that let's face each other and see the statistics. We can compare how much narcotics we have seized."

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Recently, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi and AAP chief Arvind Kejriwal have attacked the Gujarat government over seizures of large quantities of narcotics from ports and elsewhere.

According to ATS officials "the drug consignment was destined for Punjab and other north Indian states" and was being smuggled by a drug cartel operating from Pakistan. They said that consignment was sent by a Pakistani drug mafia identified as Abdullah from Karachi port in collusion with two suspects lodged at Amritsar and Kapurthala jails in Punjab.

These two have been identified as Nigerian national Obinna alias Chief and a resident of West Delhi identified as Mehraj Rehmani Sattar. They were caught in 2019 with 1 kg heroin from Jalandhar. In a press note, ATS has said that on behalf of Obinna and Sattar, the consignment was to be picked up from Gujarat port by two Delhi residents Sartaj Malik and Jaggi Singh.

An ATS officer said that the six Pakistani nationals were traveling in a fishing boat named "Al Tayasa" who were caught following a mid sea operation with the help of ICG officials.

A release from ICG stated that the operation was based on specific input provided by the ATS. "During midnight, a Pakistani boat was observed moving suspiciously in Indian waters, 5 nm (nautical miles) inside notional IMBL (International Maritime Board Line) and 40 nm from Jakhau (Kutch district). On being challenged, the Pakistani boat over boarded a consignment and started evasive maneuvering. The consignment was skillfully recovered by one of the two ICG ships and found to be a drug consignment." The agency stated that this was the fifth such joint operation by ICG and ATS in the last one year.

The seizure of contraband comes less than a week after ATS and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence officials jointly recovered 40 kg heroin concealed in gear boxes from a freight station at Kolkata port. The consignment had come from Dubai, and was misdeclared as scrap. This consignment has been lying at the station since February this year.