18 Pakistanis among 32 peddlers booked

Amritsar, September 26

The State Special Operation Cell (SSOC) has booked 32 drug peddlers, including 18 Pakistanis, who were active in drug smuggling across the India-Pakistan border. Among them, several drug smugglers operating an international drug trade have also been named. Nine of them are currently operating from the US, Australia, France, Turkey and UAE. There are local hawala operators who give financial assistance to drug lords and make money transactions via Pakistan and Afghanistan.

On a tip-off, the SSOC booked Pakistani smugglers, including Arif, Asif, Sadiq, Chaudhry Akram, Haider, Rustom, Mirza, Nasir, Imran Shah, Imtiaz, Mian, Bilal, Mane Shah, Bhola Sandhu, Abdul Hameed Bagga, Javed, Aslam and Shera. It got information that these smugglers had been running a large-scale heroin smuggling network, along with Pakistan security agencies, on the Indo-Pak border and huge consignments of heroin were being smuggled through Indian smugglers settled abroad.

The SSOC officials claimed that a large part of the heroin is being consumed in Punjab and also being supplied to Delhi and other cities. Money earned from heroin is being transferred to Pakistan and Afghanistan via Dubai through a huge hawala network.