Pakistani boat carrying 250kg heroin intercepted

TNN

Ahmedabad, 21 Apr 2015: The Indian Navy seized a Pakistani boat ferrying a huge consignment of heroin from international maritime boundary line on Monday evening. The security agencies have detained eight persons, including five suspected Pakistani nationals, along with 250 kg of heroin.

 

The detainees and the boat have been handed over to Coast Guard and would be brought to Porbandar on Tuesday. Sources in Coast Guard said they are combing the seas to verify possible presence of other vessels. Coast Guard officials remained tight-lipped about the development. Suspicious movements of boats off Saurashtra coast have kept security agencies on their toes since Sunday.

 

 

Earlier, in a separate incident, two boats belonging to local fishermen were intercepted by Coast Guard and Gujarat marine police off Gujarat coast. "The boats, ’Fiza’ and ’Fatima’, did not have mandatory documents for fishing. Their interrogation will reveal more details," sources in Kalyanpur police station told TOI.

 

On January 1 this year, a ’suspicious’ Pakistani fishing vessel had sunk without a trace around 365-km off Porbandar in mysterious circumstances after being intercepted by Coast Guard offshore patrol vessel ICGS Rajratan on the high seas.

 

The government was forced to launch a damage-control exercise after a video surfaced that showed Coast Guard DIG B K Loshali bragging that he had ordered ICGS Rajratan to "blow off" the Pakistani fishing boat.

 

Defence minister Manohar Parrikar had stressed that the "rogue" boat had been set ablaze by four "suspected terrorists" on it after being intercepted. Rejecting the contention the four persons could have been just smugglers or traffickers, Parrikar had stressed circumstantial evidence showed the four persons were "probably terrorists" since they were also in regular touch with Pakistan army as well as the country’s maritime security agency.