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10 kg cocaine recovered from cross LOC trade truck |
While claiming that the Rs. 10 crore worth cocaine consignment, seized
from a truck across the LoC Hizbul Mujahideen, the Jammu and Kashmir Police have arrested an
alleged operative of the militant outfit from the capital city on
Friday. in Baramulla district, had been smuggled in
for
The North Kashmir Deputy Inspector General of Police J.P. Singh confirmed the Baramulla Police operation and told The Hindu
that one Shehzad was picked up from Fruit Mandi area of Srinagar.
“Driver of the seized truck Abdul Ahad of Mawar, Handwara, revealed
during sustained questioning that the cocaine consignment was for Hizbul Mujahideen’s Shehzad. We got him to Srinagar to call Shehzad to
Parimpora. As soon as Shehzad reached the given spot, we took him into
custody”, DIG Singh said.
Mr. Singh claimed that Shehzad was an “overground militant operative
closely linked to Hizbul Mujahideen’s top brass in Pakistan and Jammu
and Kashmir”. “He admitted to being the importer of the cocaine
consignment but maintained during the preliminary questioning that the
contraband was supposed to be delivered to another operative whose
particulars would be communicated by the organisation from Pakistan”,
Mr. Singh said.
More details: http://indianexpress.com/article/india/want-to-question-drug-racket-suspects-in-pakistan-jk-police-to-government-4950300/
Case FIR number 47 under section 6 of Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic
Substances Act has been registered at Police Station Sheri in Baramulla
district. Shehzad’s antecedents and background could not be verified
immediately from independent sources.
Nine packets of cocaine, each weighing one kilo and valued at Rs. 10
crore in international drug markets, had been seized from a cross-LoC
trade truck earlier on Friday. Entire fleet of the trucks that had gone
across the LoC to the Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir’s Trade Facilitation
Centre at Chakoti to deliver goods on Thursday, was intercepted and
thoroughly checked at a barricade on Baramulla-Uri Road on Friday.
The DIG said police had received information about the possibility of
smuggling of drugs and arms through three particular trucks. He said
that the contraband was seized from a truck bearing registration number
JK02F-0127. It had been concealed in a tyre in the tool box of the
vehicle that had carried a load of bananas from Srinagar to Chakoti.
The barter trade of over two dozen listed items operates for four days a
week through Uri in Baramulla district of Kashmir valley and
Chakan-Da-Bagh in Poonch district of Jammu. As a significant feature of
the confidence building measures between India and Pakistan, the
cross-LoC trade has been in operation since October 21, 2008. Cross-LoC
travel had been resumed after 57 years in April 2005.
While as the PoK government has set up the TFC at Chakoti for delivery
of the goods imported from Srinagar, the J&K government has a
similar facility at Salambad, short of the Aman Sethu bridge, the
zero-line on LoC in Uri. Goods imported from Muzaffarabad are delivered
there for trans-shipment to Srinagar and Baramulla.
Even as some prohibited items, including rounds of ammunition and
Pakistani SIM cards have been recovered from some vehicles and
passengers in Jammu, it is for the first time in the last five years of
the cross-LoC trade that a sizable quantity of cocaine has been
allegedly smuggled in and seized.
