india

Updated: Jul 01, 2019 08:05 IST

Indian customs have made one of the biggest seizures of heroin along the India-Pakistan border in Punjab’s Attari and recovered 532 kg of the contraband worth ~ 2,700 crore, officials said on Sunday.

The seizure was made from a consignment of 600 bags of rock salt. Officials said a Pakistani truck had returned after offloading the consignment at Attari’s Integrated Check Post (ICP) on June 26. The consignment remained at the ICP until an agent of an Indian importer arrived to clear it on Saturday.

Customs (preventive) commissioner Dipak Kumar Gupta said a sack of the consignment was found to have white-coloured powder substance. “On detailed examination of the 600 bags, 15 bags were suspected to have narcotics. On 100% examination of the 15 bags, all of them were found to contain heroin having a net weight of 532 kg,’’ he said. He said 52 kg of mixed narcotics was also recovered. Gupta called the seizure “greatest success of customs” against the organised narcotics smuggling along the India-Pakistan border.

In October 2012, 101 kg of heroin worth ~505 crore was seized from a goods train from Pakistan at Attari railway station. “The heroin, worth ~2700 crore, and the other narcotics have been seized under provisions of the Customs Act, 1962 [read with Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985],” said Gupta.

Despite a 200% duty increase in February, the salt was imported, according to the custom officials

Gupta said Amritsar-based Kanishk Enterprises had imported the consignment of salt through Lahore-based Global Vision Impex. He added Kanishk Enterprises’s importer Gurpinder Singh has been detained.

Gupta said Tariq Ahmed, a resident of Jammu and Kashmir’s Handwara who had placed the order for the consignment, has also been arrested. He said they were probing into who made the payment for the drugs and where they were to be smuggled.

Customs joint commissioner Arvind Kumar said the drugs were recovered when their staff found the weight and shape of one of the bags to be different. “After this, all other bags were examined.” “Some lapses must have been there and that is why the consignment crossed over to India,” said Gupta.