On Tuesday (12th March), Indian security agencies arrested six Pakistani nationals on a boat carrying drugs worth Rs 480 crore near the Porbandar coast in Gujarat. In an overnight operation, the accused were arrested while they were trying to enter the Indian territory last night.
Acting on a tip-off, officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Indian Coast Guard, and Gujarat Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) carried out the joint operation on 11th and 12th March.
The NCB stated that in an overnight joint operation on 11th and 12th March, the Indian Coast Guard apprehended a Pakistani Boat with 6 crew onboard and around 80 Kg of drugs worth approximately Rs 480 crores.
The boat was apprehended about 350 Km from Porbandar into the Arabian Sea in a sea-air coordinated operation involving ICG ships and Dornier Aircraft. The operation exhibited well-coordinated efforts between ICG, NCB, and ATS Gujrat. This is the tenth apprehension by ICG, jointly with ATS Gujarat and NCB, in the last three years, amounting to 517 kg drugs worth Rs 3,135 crores, the agency added.
Major drugs bust
Notably, in the past 30 days, this marks the second major drug shipment intercepted off the coast of Gujarat.
On 28th February, the largest-ever drug seizure in the Indian subcontinent took place when authorities confiscated at least 3,300 kg of drugs from a boat with suspected Pakistani crew members off the Gujarat coast.
The international market value of the seized drugs was estimated to be over Rs 2,000 crore. A “Produce of Pakistan” label was written on the cache of the seized narcotics and the total seizure included 3,089 kg of cannabis, 158 kg of methamphetamine, and 25 kg of morphine.
Pertinent to note that it is different from the drug seizure made from a warehouse in Delhi in which three accused hailing from Tamil Nadu were arrested earlier in February. According to NCB, the Former DMK leader and Tamil film Producer Jaffer Sadiq is the accused mastermind of the International drug racket which had trafficked drugs worth over Rs 2000 crores in the last several years. In that seizure on 15th February, nearly 50kg of pseudoephedrine (a narcotics-making chemical used to make methamphetamine) was confiscated.