8 Pak nationals held off Gujarat coast with drugs worth Rs 150 crore

New Delhi, Apr 15: Eight Pakistani nationals on board a boat were apprehended with heroin worth around Rs 150 crore off the Gujarat coast in the Arabian Sea early Thursday morning, the state ATS said.

Based on a specific tip-off, a joint team of the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad and the Indian Coast Guard caught the boat, in an operation carried out near the Jakhau port of
Kutch district, the ATS said in a release.

The spot is located close to the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) separating India and Pakistan in the sea, the ATS said in a release.

The tip-off about the drug consignment on the Pakistani boat was shared with the agencies by the Special Operations Group of Devbhumi-Dwarka district police and a senior ATS official, the release said.

The joint team of the ATS and the Coast Guard apprehended eight Pakistani men from the boat and seized 30 kg of heroin, a psychotropic drug, from their possession.

The value of the seized drug is around Rs 150 crore in the international market, said ATS in the statement.