The Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad, with the help of the Delhi and Uttar Pradesh police, recovered 155 kilogrammes of heroin worth Rs 775 crore from a house in UP's Muzaffarnagar, an ATS official said in Ahmedabad on Monday.
The narcotics substance worth Rs 775 crore in the international market was seized from a house belonging to key drug case accused Raji Haider Zaidi's sister in Muzaffarnagar on Sunday, said superintendent of police (ATS) Sunil Joshi.
Zaidi was one of the four accused nabbed by the joint teams of the ATS and the Narcotics Control Bureau from different places in Delhi and UP on April 27, days after the arrest of nine Pakistani nationals with heroin worth Rs 280 crore in the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast.
"Based on specific information that Zaidi had kept a large cache of narcotics at his sister's place in Muzaffarnagar, ATS officials, with the help of Delhi and UP police, raided the location and recovered 155 kg of heroin worth Rs 775 crore. We also recovered 55 kg of a chemical substance suspected to be a raw material to make narcotics," Joshi told reporters.
On April 25, the Indian Coast Guard and the ATS apprehended a Pakistani boat with nine crew members on board in the Arabian Sea and seized 56 kilogram of heroin worth Rs 280 crore from the vessel.
Since preliminary investigation had revealed that a Karachi-based smuggler, identified only as Mustafa, was behind this racket and the seized contraband was supposed to be transported to a northern state, the ATS and the NCB had formed various teams and nabbed four persons from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi on April 27.
The NCB had also recovered 35 kilogrammes of heroin from Muzaffarnagar and 50 kg from Jamia Nagar, Delhi.
The arrested persons included Imran Amir of Muzaffarnagar, Raji Hyder Zaidi and Avtar Singh alias Sunny of Delhi's Jamia Nagar and Abdul Khaliq, an Afghan national living in the Lajpat Nagar area of the national capital.
"Our probe has revealed that Zaidi was the key accused and was supposed to receive the 56 kg heroin seized mid-sea had the landing been successful. He was also the receiver in the seizure of 102 kg heroin from the Attari border (between India and Pakistan) recently," said Joshi.
At present, Zaidi is in the custody of NCB-Delhi.
As of now, the Gujarat ATS does not have any specific information about his past criminal activities, he said.
"He had worked in the construction sector as well as in the flex banner business in Delhi. The Gujarat ATS will seek his custody in the near future to find out his connections and financial sources," the SP said.
