Indian law-enforcement agencies are seizing an ever-increasing quantity of heroin from the Indo-Pak border indicating a rise in trafficking of contraband from its neighbouring nations through the country, a report said.
According to the annual report of the International Narcotics Control Board released on Wednesday, the quantity of heroin entering India from Pakistan and Afghanistan has increased in the year 2007 than the previous years.
"Law-enforcement agencies in the north-western part of India are seizing ever-increasing quantities of heroin originating in Afghanistan and Pakistan and en route to Europe via Pakistan and India," it said.
There has been increasing reports of Indian heroin becoming available in Bangladesh, it said noting that there is evidence that Europe-bound heroin are increasingly passing through the country. Heroin is trafficked to Bangladesh through various means -- by courier, by commercial vehicles or train along the route leading from India and by sea via Bay of Bengal or overland by truck or public transport along a route leading from Myanmar to Bangladesh, the report said.
The Vienna-based board said the use of courier services for drug trafficking seems to be on the rise in India. Providing instances, the report said in July 2007, the Narcotics Control Bureau of India (NCB) stopped two parcels containing more than one kg of heroin in a courier office in Delhi. While one parcel was destined for Canada, the other was meant for South Africa,
The board said trafficking in and abuse of cannabis and heroin have increased in South Asia, noting that porous borders between India, Bangladesh, Bhutan and Nepal contribute to cross-border smuggling and consequently increase in availability of illicit drugs in the region.
South American cocaine is trafficked to India in small quantities where it is exchanged for South-West Asian heroin bound for Europe or North America, the report said.
"India is increasingly being used as a major transit country and also as a destination country for drug trafficking," it said. Releasing the report, NCB director general K C Verma said cocaine seizure in the country was negligible at about five kg per year while trafficking through the region amounts to over 400 tonne every year.
"The largest quantity seized in a single incident was a 500 gram recovery while others are one gram or two gram each," he said.
The report said international drug trafficking syndicates, mostly involving West African organised criminal groups, have been using India as a major transit country for Europe-bound drug consignments.
