Pak worried about heroin outflow to India
Pakistan is worried not only with the inflow of heroin from Afghanistan to Pakistan but also with the outflow of the illegal narcotic to India.
Pakistan is worried not only with the inflow of heroin from Afghanistan to Pakistan but also with the outflow of the illegal narcotic to India.
"We are concerned not only with the inflow from Afghanistan which produces 90% of the world’s heroin but also with the outflow to India," said Major General Malik Zafar Iqbal, director general of the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), Pakistan’s nodal anti-narcotics body.
Iqbal, speaking on the sidelines of the DG-level conference with the Narcotics Control Bureau of India, said the drug problem is an issue which requires immediate attention and can be effective only when combated jointly by both India and Pakistan.
The Border Security Force (BSF), which guards the Indo-Pak border, has already reported 2012 as the year of biggest heroin hauls from Pakistan till date.
“Till October this year, we have seized more than 265 kg of heroin that came in from Pakistani side which is an all-time high. This is a definite spurt from 72 kg in 2011 and 105 kg in 2010,” a top BSF source told HT.
“Besides using well-established networks on both sides of Punjab, drug smugglers at the border are equipping themselves with sophisticated weapons and do not hesitate to fire when challenged. This year itself the BSF has shot dead eight heroin smugglers,” the source added.
Pakistan has also reported huge seizures this year which has been attributed to the recurrence of poppy cultivation in Afghanistan. Heroin is a poppy extract.
According to sources, less than 20% of the heroin that is pushed into Pakistan from Afghanistan is smuggled to India by various modes of which sending the drug consignments on trains is increasingly being used as an option.