4 drug traffickers held in Handwara narco terror case

Tightening its noose in the Handwara narco-terror case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested four more drug traffickers from Jammu and Kashmir.

New Delhi: Tightening its noose in the Handwara narco-terror case, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested four more drug traffickers from Jammu and Kashmir.

An NIA spokesperson here said that the anti-terror probe agency arrested four drug traffickers -- Altaf Ahmed Shah, Showkat Ahmad Parray, Mudasir Ahmad Dar and Amin Allaie aka Hilal Mir from Srinagar in connection with the case.

The official said that the arrested drug traffickers were produced before the court in Srinagar and have been taken on transit remand for three days.

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The NIA case relates to the case registered by the J&K Police in June last year wherein during checking of vehicles in Handwara, accused Abdul Momin Peer's Hyundai Creta vehicle was intercepted by police at a Naka and during search Rs 20 lakh along with two kg Heroin was recovered and seized.

NIA had re-registered the case on June 23 last year and a charge sheet was filed on December 5 last year against six accused persons in the NIA special court, Jammu.

The official said that the investigation so far has revealed that the accused persons were involved in cross-border smuggling of heroin in huge quantities from Pakistan and were supplying the same in J&K and other parts of the country.

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"They were also in regular communication with the operatives of proscribed terrorist organisations Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM), using encrypted chat platforms. The proceeds of the sale were being used to finance the activities of terrorist organisation Lashkar-e-Taiba operating in the Kashmir Valley," he added.

IANS