Eight Pakistani nationals, who were apprehended by the Navy and Coast Guard last week from a boat off the Gujarat coast with drugs worth Rs600 crore, were remanded in police custody till May 5, by a city court here on Monday. A day after the eight Pakistani nationals were brought to the city from the neighbouring Gujarat State, the Yellow Gate police registered an FIR against them and produced them before a city court which remanded in their custody till Tuesday next.
The police said that since the boat in which they were smuggling in drugs was captured in international waters, an FIR was registered in Mumbai. “The Yellow Gate police in Mumbai deals with all such violations committed along the country’s West Coast,” a senior police officer said. The Yellow Gate police have booked the eight Pakistani nationals under relevant sections of Indian Penal Code, Narcotic Substances and Psychotropic Substances Act and maritime laws.
“Since the multiple agencies, including the Intelligence Bureau, the Navy, the Narcotics Control Bureau and the Coast Guard have interrogated the arrested men. We are collating all the information before beginning the interrogation of the arrested Paksitani nationals whom we formally took into custody today,” a senior officer from the Yellow Gate police station said. Earlier on April 24, when the Coast Guard officials had produced the eight men before a Gujarat court, which had ruled that it could not hear the case it was beyond its jurisdiction.
The boat, from which the eight Pakistani national were apprehended, was carrying 232 kilograms of heroin drug at the time of its interception by the Navy and Coast Guard. The seized drug was estimated to be of worth Rs600 crore in the international grey market. When the Yellow Gate police produced eight Pakistani national before a city court, the Prosecution told the court that the investigators wanted to ascertain the intended recipient of the drug cache, a thing that could be done during custodial interrogation.
The Prosecution told the city court that the eight Pakistani nationals were part of an international drug smuggling racket and that the police were investigating the identity of the owner of the boat and how it had set sail without a name and even a flag. Apart from Rs 600 crore worth heroin, the Navy and Coast Guard personnel had seized a Thuraya satellite phone from the apprehended Pakistani nationals. “We are trying to ascertain the identities of the persons whom they were in touch with India and Pakistan while they were on board the boat,” the police officer said.