The fishing boat was intercepted mid-sea by a joint team of the Coast Guard and ATS near Jakhau harbour in Kutch district, the official said.“The heroin was meant to be transported to Punjab by road after being offloaded on the Gujarat coast.
Ahmedabad: The Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad in a joint operation with the Indian Coast Guard seized 40 kg heroin worth Rs 200 crore from a Pakistani fishing boat in the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast on Wednesday, September 14, a senior ATS official said, a report in The Tribune, chandigarh, says.
Six Pakistani crew members of the boat were also apprehended, he said.
The fishing boat was intercepted mid-sea by a joint team of the Coast Guard and ATS near Jakhau harbour in Kutch district, the official said.“The heroin was meant to be transported to Punjab by road after being offloaded on the Gujarat coast.
Based on a specific tip- off, we intercepted the boat which left from Pakistan, and caught six Pakistani nationals with 40 kg of heroin,” he said.
The ATS and Coast Guard officials along with the seized boat are expected to reach the Jakhau coast later in the day, he said.
The state ATS and the Coast Guard had foiled similar attempts of drug smuggling in the past also and caught foreign nationals with huge quantities of narcotics which they planned to smuggle into India via the Gujarat coast.
According to the Indian Coast Guard, six crew members were on the boat, Al Tayyasa in Indian waters of Arabian sea with 40 kilograms of heroin.
Earlier on June 2, a Pakistani boat with seven crew members on board was seized by the Indian Coast Guard off the Gujarat coast.
The Pakistani boat, suspected of transporting contraband, was arrested by the ICG on the evenings of May 30 and 31, based on intelligence supplied by the Gujarat Anti Terrorist Squad (ATS), news agency PTI had reported.
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