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| Rs 100 million heroine smuggled through Akhnoor seized | | | Early Times Reporter
Jammu | Dec 1: A huge cache of drugs imported from Aghanistan worth crores of rupees making way into this side of border through Akhnoor has forced the Border Security Forces to change its deployment pattern.
Infamous for its established channels of trans-border drug trafficking, Akhnoor area in Jammu districts has once again come under limelight following seizure of fresh drugs worth Rs 100 millions from conduit in Chandigarh.
Knowledgeable sources told EARLY TIMES that sleuths of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) today arrested two people including a foreign national and recovered from them 10 kg of heroin, worth Rs.100 million in the international market, which had been brought from Afghanistan via Pakistan. A source in the Narcotics Bureau said that the packing of the consignment showed that it was fresh stock from Afghanistan that was packed and sent through Pakistan. The drug consignment made its way into India through the Akhnoor border.
While the authorities are on look out for their local facilitator in Akhnoor or Jammu, the Narcotic Bureau sleuths have arrested once Paramjit Singh of Attari village near the India-Pakistan border and Festus Benson a Burundi national.
Singh had been in prison earlier on charges of drug peddling. He was first arrested in 1998 with one kg of heroin and was released on parole in 2005. He did not go back to the prison at the end of his parole period. NCB officials said they were tracking Singh's movements for the last two months following a tip-off that he would be delivering a big consignment.
In recent years, Punjab has become a major transit and sale point for drugs from Afghanistan and Pakistan. Smugglers have been active in the state with the Punjab police pointing to the involvement of certain politicians and influential people in helping them run the illegal trade.
Meanwhile, the Border Security Force (BSF) has changed its deployment pattern along the Pakistan border to get the better of smugglers using Jammu and Kashmir and Punjab as a transit point for drugs from Pakistan and Afghanistan. In 2007, the BSF seized 99 kg of heroin - valued at over Rs.990 million in the international market - from smugglers and their couriers in Punjab alone.
Faced with increased smuggling of drugs through the fenced border in Punjab and Jammu and Kashmir, the BSF was forced to change the deployment pattern of its personnel after realising that smugglers in both countries were hoodwinking the paramilitary force.
'We realised this during the interrogation of arrested smugglers and their couriers in recent months. Earlier we had a straight-jacket deployment to cover the maximum areas,' a BSF officer said.
The BSF has now changed its deployment pattern along the border and introduced an element of surprise to keep smugglers and their agents at bay. The result has been seizure of 99 kg of heroin, eight arrests and two smugglers killed. 'The movement and timing of the personnel on duty has been staggered. We have put up concealed troops as a second line of defence to the patrolling parties. An element of surprise has helped us wrest the initiative,' a BSF officer said.
Local couriers - called bandis - have jacked up their rates for transporting drug packets from Rs.5,000 to Rs.30,000 per consignment pack in view of the increased BSF surveillance. Some bandis are third generation couriers operating in both countries. |
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