Gujarat ATS seizes heroin worth Rs376.5 cr from near Mundra port

Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad has seized 75.3 kg of heroin estimated to be worth Rs 376.5 crore from a container near the Mundra port in Kutch district, an official said on Tuesday.

The contraband, hidden inside fabric rolls to dodge the authorities, was sent from the UAE and was meant to be transported to Punjab, Gujarat Director General of Police Ashish Bhatia said.

The Punjab police recently gave a tip off to the Gujarat ATS that a shipping container which arrived at the Mundra port about two and half months back might be containing drugs and the cargo was meant to be delivered in Punjab, Bhatia told reporters in Gandhinagar.

“After getting the basic information, a Gujarat ATS team along with a Punjab police sub-inspector reached Mundra and located the suspected container kept at a Container Freight Station near the port. It arrived at the Mundra port on May 13 from Ajman Free Zone in the UAE,” he said.

During a close inspection of 540 fabric rolls kept in the container, the heroin powder was found inside 64 of them, he said.

“A cloth was wrapped on long cylindrical pipes made of cardboard. Drug dealers had created a cavity by putting a plastic pipe of a larger diameter on the cardboard pipe. Heroin was filled in the cavity and then sealed tightly using carbon tapes so that it goes undetected in X-ray check,” the official said. The container was meant to be transported to Punjab, he said adding that no arrest has been made yet.

The container was sent by one Green Forest General Trading in the UAE and it was received by Jovial Container Lines, a West Bengal-based delivery agent having its office at Gandhidham in Kutch, he said. Asked why no action was taken against the Mundra port authorities, Bhatia said it was wrong to pinpoint only one port.

“Drug peddlers will use whatever channel they find suitable to send drugs to India. Not just Mundra, we had seized drugs from other Gujarat ports like Kandla and Pipavav in the recent past. Drugs had also been seized from the Nhava Sheva port in Maharashtra, in Chennai and in West Bengal too,” he said.

The official said most of the drugs sent to the Gujarat ports had been seized.