Lagatar24 Desk
Morbi, Nov.15: Three persons were detained after the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) found 120 kilogrammes of heroin worth Rs 600 crore from Zinzuda village in Morbi district.
Mukhtar Hussein alias Jabbar Jodiya, Shamsuddin Hussein Saiyyed, and Ghulam Hussein Umar Bhagad were apprehended in a joint ATS-local police operation.
“Preliminary investigation has revealed that the consignment of heroin was brought by Mukhtar Hussein and Ghulam Bhagad via the sea route after receiving the delivery from a Pakistani boat. This drug consignment was sent by Zahid Bashir Baloch, a resident of Pakistan, who is absconding in an earlier case pertaining to the seizure of 227 kg of heroin in 2019,” the Gujarat ATS said in a statement.
The heroin was to be given to Indian smugglers to be smuggled to an African country, according to the Gujarat ATS.
“Gujarat Police has achieved yet another feat. Gujarat Police is leading the fight against drugs from the front lines. Around 120 kg of drugs have been seized by the Gujarat ATS, ” said Gujarat’s Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi.
Himanshu Shukla, DIG Gujarat ATS, said at a press briefing, “In the last year, the Gujarat ATS has confiscated drugs worth Rs 1,320 crore. The drugs are brought into India from places like Afghanistan and Pakistan, where they are produced in large quantities.”
The news comes months after the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) confiscated 3,000 kilogrammes of heroin valued at Rs 21,000 crore from the Mundra port in Kutch.
Smuggled talc stones were discovered in two cargo containers labelled as delivering semi-processed talc stones. The narcotics were brought in from Afghanistan.
The recovered heroin was exported by Hassan Hussain Limited of Kandhar and imported by Aashi Trading Company of Vijayawada via Iran’s Bandar Abbas Port to Gujarat’s Mundra Port.
Machavaram Sudhakaran and Durga P V Govindaraju, a Chennai-based couple, were also arrested in the case, which is currently with the National Investigation Agency (NIA).
Machavaram Sudhakaran, Durga P V Govindaraju, and Rajkumar P are among those listed in the NIA’s FIR. The company that was shipping the contraband was owned by Sudhakaran and Govindaraju. Govindaraju is the owner of Aashi Trading Company, which imports talc and is based in Vijayawada, Andhra Pradesh.
