The heroin consignment was seized by the Border Security Force

The Border Security Force (BSF) Thursday recovered five kilograms of heroin worth Rs 25 crore near the International Border (IB) in Jammu and Kashmir, foiling an attempt by the drug traffickers to smuggle the consignment into the country.

The consignment, seized about 100 metres ahead of the fence inside Indian territory in Suchetgarh sector, was smuggled from Pakistan and was suspected to be taken to Punjab through local Indian smugglers working for a Pakistan smuggling group run by notorious peddler Chaudhary Akram, a BSF spokesman said.

He said efforts are on to identify the local smugglers to break the network.

Terming the recovery as a "major success", the spokesman said the BSF carried out a special search operation on a specific information and found a plastic can in a branch of Phalku Nalla.

"During search of the can it was found to be filled with around five kgs of drugs. The area on Pakistan side of international boundary is undulated with small nallas and wild growth which might have provided cover to smugglers to conceal the contraband," he said, adding this was the first instance of attempt of smuggling on the Jammu IB seized by BSF.

Last year in the month of December, he said the BSF had recovered three kgs of heroin on specific information in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district.

"The BSF has been working on likely drugs smuggling for some time. It is suspected that this consignment was to be taken to Punjab through local Indian smugglers working for Pakistan smuggling group run by notorious peddler Chaudhary Akram.

"The BSF in tandem with other agencies is developing input to identify and nail down the local smugglers and break the network. The smugglers adopted ''conceal and clear'' method in both the cases of the recovery," the spokesman said.