354 kg heroin worth Rs 2,500 cr seized in Delhi

Delhi Police Special Cell has seized nearly 354 kg heroin worth Rs 2,500 crores while busting a huge drug racket. Four people, including an Afghan national, have been also arrested in the case.

New Delhi: The Special Cell of Delhi Police on Saturday busted a huge drug racket and recovered about 350 kg heroin worth Rs 2,500 crores in the national capital. As many as four people, including an Afghan national, have been arrested so far in the case. According to police, this is one of the biggest consignment of drugs to ever be caught. In 2019, the Special Cell had seized 330 kg of such heroin in a multi-state operation.

The police are interrogating the accused to trace their network and associates. Special Cell DCP Pramod Kushwaha is supervising the case. He informed that the heroin smugglers were caught after police received specific inputs. "We received inputs that drugs are being brought to Delhi from Afghanistan via Mumbai and Madhya Pradesh," he said.

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According to Neeraj Thakur, Special Commissioner of Special Cell, the accused have been identified as Rizwan Ahmed, a resident of Ghitorni in New Delhi and native of Jammu and Kashmir's Anantnag, Gurpreet Singh and Gurjot Singh, both residents of Jalandhar in Punjab and Hazrat Ali, a native of Kandahar in Afghanistan.

Police got information that Ahmed was involved in drug peddling in Delhi and other states like Punjab, Madhya Pradesh and Haryana. "On Monday, police received information that Ahmed was going to deliver contraband in south Delhi's Ghitorni area. A trap was laid and the accused was arrested when he was going to deliver a packet of 1 kg of heroin," DCP Pramod Kushwaha said.

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According to Special Commissioner Neeraj Thakur, Ahmed revealed that he works under an Afghan national named Isha Khan who recently left India and went to Afghanistan. Khan directed him to contact Gurpreet and Gurjot who were currently operating a drug racket from Faridabad in Haryana. Based on the information provided by Gurpreet and Gurjot, police recovered 351 Kg of heroin from two cars and rented accommodation.

"They also revealed that they were operating the drug racket on the instructions of a man named Navpreet Singh alias Nav, who is currently hiding in Portugal. The two met Navpreet in Punjab's Kapurthala Jail," police said. Based on the disclosure of Ahmed, Ali was also arrested from Gurgaon and 2 kg of heroin was recovered from him. Around 100 kg of chemicals were also seized from his possession, Thakur said.

During the interrogation, it was revealed that Ahmed used to arrange chemicals for the gang while Ali was an expert in producing heroin from these chemicals. Police also shared details of few international drug peddlers with the concerned agencies after it was revealed that the entire drug racket was run by smugglers from Afghanistan and Europe.

Special Commissioner Neeraj Thakur said that police are probing the case with a terror-funding angle also after inputs were received that drugs were being sent to India via Pakistan as well.

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