INDIA. Mumbai: The Indian Coast Guard (ICG) and Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) apprehended a Pakistani boat with six crew members in the Indian waters off the Gujarat coast with 40 kilograms of heroin worth Rs 200 crore in a joint operation on Wednesday night.
“In a joint Ops with ATS #Gujarat, Indian Coast Guard apprehended #Pakistani Boat Al Tayyasa with 06 crew in #Indian waters of #Arabian Sea carrying about 40 Kgs #heroin worth approx 200 Cr. Boat being brought to #Jakhau for further investigation,” the Coast Guard tweeted.
A Pakistani boat, “Al Tayyasa,” was observed moving suspiciously in Indian waters, 40 nautical miles off the Jakhau coast. It was six miles inside Indian waters and was inside the notional International Maritime Border Line (IMBL), the ICG officials said.
The ICG strategically deployed two fast interceptor class ships, C-408 and C-454, for patrolling in the vicinity of the hypothetical IMBL on the intervening night of September 13–14.
The agency’s move came after it received intelligence inputs from the ATS Gujarat. On being challenged, the Pakistani boat over boarded a consignment and started evasive manoeuvring. An official statement said that the ICG ships intercepted the boat and apprehended it.
The boat and crew members were brought to Jakhau for a further joint investigation by all agencies.
Reports said that the 40 kg heroin seized was meant to be transported to Punjab by road after being off-loaded from the boat, and two drug pushers -Jaggi and Sartaj, had come from Punjab to pick up the consignment. The Gujarat ATS arrested them, and now it is in the process of detaining a man of Nigerian origin who had ordered it while lodged in Kapurthala jail in Punjab.
The Nigerian man was stated to be in touch with one Abdullah from Karachi, who sent the consignment and persuaded fishermen to carry it to the Gujarat border.
In May this year, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and ICG intercepted 218 kg of heroin in a mid-sea bust off the Lakshadweep Islands. The seized drug was high-grade heroin with an estimated value of Rs 1526 crore in the international market.
Prior to this, the DRI had discovered 205.6 kg of heroin from a commercial import shipment of gypsum powder at the Kandla port on April 20, 396 kg of yarn (laced with heroin) at the Pipavav port on April 29, and 62 kg of heroin at the Air Cargo Complex, IGI New Delhi on May 19.
These previous discoveries had a combined illicit market value of about Rs. 2,500 crores. Last year, Wednesday was the fifth joint operation by the ICG and ATS, Gujarat.
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