50-kg heroin worth Rs 250 cr seized from Veraval port, 9 arrested

Those arrested have been identified as Asif alias Kara Shaman (24), Arbaaz Pama (23), Dharmendra Kashyap (30), Anuj Kashyap, Aman Kashyap (23), Rajan Misar (19), Vishnu Misar (25), Rohit Nisar (20) and Rahul Kashyap (20).

According to the police, Asif used to work as a driver delivering parcels from Jamnagar to Rajkot for Rs 20,000. On February 22, Asif was contacted via a WhatsApp call and told to pick up a parcel from Veraval and drop it off at Rajkot for which he would be paid Rs 50,000. Later, Asif and Arbaaz dropped the parcel at Dharmendra’s place in Veraval where they were intercepted by the police.

Upon interrogating Asif, it was revealed that more drugs were still at the port that were recovered by the police. It was also established that Dharmendra went fishing with sailors and an unknown person at Oman’s sea limits contacted him and gave him free fish worth 1,500 kg and Rs 50,000 in exchange for delivering two parcels to Gujarat.

Alongside the drugs, the police also seized the fishing boat, the vehicle and mobile phones from the accused. “Pakistan and Iran have been conspiring and we’ve been successful in stopping that today. There has been a top-to-bottom inquiry,” state Home Minister Harsh Sanghavi told reporters later.

He also urged everyone to not make drugs a political issue, but rather join the battle against drugs that ruin lives.

– With PTI inputs