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Delhi importer held for 102-kg Attari heroin haul
The Amritsar Customs on Monday arrested a Delhi-based importer, two days after the seizure of heroin concealed in a stock of mulethi (liquorice root) at the Attari integrated check post
The Amritsar Customs on Monday arrested a Delhi-based importer, two days after the seizure of 102-kg heroin concealed in a stock of mulethi (liquorice root) at the Attari integrated check post (ICP), which facilitates India’s trade with Pakistan and Afghanistan.
The accused has been identified as Arun Mittal, who owns Balaji Trading Company, which had placed the order of the mulethi consignment from Afghanistan.
The consignment had arrived on Friday, and the contraband was detected late on Saturday after the goods were scanned in the X-ray machine installed at the godowns of the ICP. Sources in the Customs said the consignment was ordered by Delhi-based Balaji Trading Company from a firm owned by one Muhammad Alam Nazir Ansari in Afghanistan’s Mazar-i-Sharif. It was being ferried by an Afghanistani truck driver.
“We have arrested Balaji Trading Company’s owner Arun Mittal from Delhi. He will be produced in a local court, where his remand will be sought for questioning,” said a senior Customs official, who didn’t wish to be named.
According to the official, this was the second consignment received by the Delhi firm through the Attari-Wagah border. Earlier, a mulethi consignment was received in the name of the same trader in 2018. “We are yet to ascertain if the company received more consignments from the neighboring countries from other routes in the recent past,” said the official.
Sources said the Customs officials have also questioned the truck driver who was to pick up the consignment from the Attari border, but his role has not yet been ascertained yet.
Amritsar trader held for 205-kg Kandla heroin haul
Meanwhile, the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) on Monday issued a press release, claiming the arrest of an Amritsar-based trader after the seizure of 205.6-kg heroin at the Kandla Port in Gujarat.
The contraband was concealed in a consignment of gypsum powder that had arrived from Iran’s Bander Abbas Port about a week ago. According to the DRI, the importer, whose name has not been revealed, had ordered the consignment in the name of his firm registered as Balaji Trading Company, Uttarakhand.
However, the above cited Customs official confirmed that both the “trading companies are different and were being run by different persons”.
