After an interception and a hot pursuit that followed, the Indian Coast Guard (ICG) on Tuesday apprehended a Pakistani fishing vessel off the Gujarat coast, took into custody its six crew members from the boat and seized 200 kg heroin worth Rs 600 crore in the international market.
Acting on a tip off that a Pakistani fishing boat was set to deliver a narcotics consignment off the Jakhau coast in Gujarat, an ICG ship intercepted Pakistani fishing boat ‘Al Madina’ in the wee hours of Tuesday.
The intercepted Pakistani boat indulged in “evasive manoeuvres” to avert getting apprehended. However, the ICG ship — braving rough weather conditions — chased the Pakistani boat and succeeded in apprehending the intruding boat within the limits of Indian waters.
“During the hot pursuit, crew of the Pakistani boat threw bags containing the suspicious material in the water. However, the ICG personnel boarded the Pakistani boat, took its six-member crew into custody and managed to retrieve the narcotics consignment from water,” Additional Director General K Natarajan, Coast Guard Commander (Western Seaboard), said.
Having tested of a sample from the seized consignment using a drug detection kit, the authorities prima facie found it was Heroin.
The ICG personnel in all seized 195 packets weighing approximately 200 kg of Heroin which is worth Rs 600 crore in international market “which will further verified by appropriate agencies”. “The ICG personnel are interrogating the apprehended crew members of the Pakistani boat,” Natarajan said.
Earlier on May 19, the ICG had received inputs from the National Technical Research Organisation (NTRO) about a Pakistani ship trying to enter Indian waters
Later on the night of May 20, Natarajan received intelligence input from the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and other agencies that a Pakistani fishing boat was to deliver narcotics off Gujarat and that it was to be received by an Indian boat.
The ICG swiftly responded to the intelligence inputs, by diverting ships on deployment and rushing it towards the Pakistani fishing boat in the Arabian Sea off Gujarat’s Jakhau coast in Ktch region, bordering Pakistan. The Coast Guard deployed Aranjay, a fast patrol vessel, two interceptor boats and an aircraft for intercepting the Pakistani boats.
Official sources said that the ICG intercepted and apprehended the Pakistani fishing boat nearly 200 nautical miles along the International Maritime Boundary Line off the Gujarat coast.
Tuesday’s was the major seizure of Heroin made within a span of three months. Earlier in March this year, 100 kg of Heroin was seized in a joint operation carried out by the ICG along with Gujarat Anti Terrorism Squad (ATS). “The ICG is working close coordination with all the agencies for effective drug enforcement in the maritime domain of Gujarat,” a Coast Guard spokesperson said.
The two latest Heroin seizures are being attributed to the increased vigilance along the Gujarat coast ever since November 26-29, 2008 Mumbai attack, when 10 Pakistani terrorists set sail from Karachi and targeted the country’s commercial capital.