In Gujarat, heroin worth Rs 600 crores was seized, three people arrested
The 120-kilogram heroin shipment was allegedly delivered from Pakistan in the last week of October, according to police
On Sunday night, the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) detained three people and seized 120 kgs of heroin worth Rs 600 crore from Jinjuda village in Saurashtra's Morbi district.
The three were apprehended in a single-storey house under construction in Morbi's Jinjuda village, according to police. The heroin was discovered in cement sacks stacked on top of each other.
The shipment was allegedly carried from Pakistan to an African country via Indian dhows in the last week of October, according to police.
Mukhtar Hussein alias Jabbar Jodiya, a resident of Jodiya in Jamnagar; Shamsuddin Saiyyed, a resident of Jinjuda in Morbi; and Ghulam Husseinmiya Bhagad, a resident of Jinjuda in Morbi, have been arrested.
Mukhtar Husseein has a history of narcotics trafficking, according to cops, and was even caught by the Pakistan Maritime Security Agency in 2020 for mooring his boat in Karachi. According to ATS officers, he was let off by Pakistani agencies after claiming engine problems on his boat.
Mukhtar Hussein and Ghulam Bhagad, according to police, reportedly transported the drugs via international waters off the coast of Gujarat in the last week of October. The two accused hid the consignment near Salaya in Devbhoomi Dwarka, according to police, and had lately relocated it to the house of the third accused, Shamsuddin Saiyyed, in Jinjuda village of Morbi.
Based on intelligence inputs, an ATS team raided an under-construction house at Jinjuda village of Maliya Miyana in Morbi on Sunday night and seized heroin worth Rs 600 crore. Preliminary investigation has revealed that the two accused, Mukhtar Hussein and Ghulam Bhagad, received the consignment from a Pakistani boat via sea route. Our investigation has revealed that the consignment was sent by a Pakistan citizen, Zahid Bashir Baloch, who is also a wanted absconder in a drug seizure case.
"We have also come to know that a fourth person, Isa Rav, brother of Mukhtar Hussein, was in constant touch with Baloch and he had exchanged the coordinates for the delivery of the consignment. The conspiracy was hatched in a Somali canteen in the United Arab Emirates. The normal modus operandi of such international smugglers is to hand over the consignment to their Indian counterparts who then use their local dhows to ship it to the African coast. However, we have also found that the arrested accused intended to sell parts of the consignment in India as well," said Ashish Bhatia, Director General of Police, Gujarat, at a press conference in Ahmedabad on Monday morning.
According to authorities, there are two additional wanted suspects in the case, including Isa.
