The National Investigation Agency (NIA) has arrested two key accused in the 3,000-kg heroin seizure case. One of them smuggled drugs on the Indian side, sold the stuff to domestic traffickers and routed the proceeds to the kingpin in Afghanistan.
They have been identified as Harpreet Singh Talwar a.k.a. Kabir Talwar and his accomplice, Prince Sharma, both residents of Delhi. The arrests were made following searches at 20 locations in Delhi (14), Gujarat (2), Punjab (1) and West Bengal (3) on Wednesday.
“Smuggled through maritime route”
As alleged, Talwar handled the operations on the Indian side. Both the accused were involved in the smuggling of heroin from Afghanistan using maritime route.
The NIA alleged that the two were part of the syndicate that smuggled in huge quantities of heroin from Afghanistan on the pretext of importing semi-processed Talc stones, bituminous coal and other articles.
The drugs would be transported to Delhi-based Afghan nationals involved in purification and distribution of heroin in different parts of the country, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Punjab and Haryana.
The heroin consignment at the Mundra Port in Gujarat was seized by the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) in September 2021, after which it had arrested six Afghan, one Uzbek and three Indian nationals. As it turned out, the contraband had been packed in Afghanistan, declared as that of semi-processed Talc stones, and sent by Kandahar-based Hasan Hussain Limited to Bandar Abbas port in Iran by road.
The consignment was then shipped to Mundra Port on the pretext of export to Aashi Trading Company in Andhra Pradesh’s Vijayawada.
The NIA took over the case on October 2021. Based on the findings, the agency filed a charge sheet against 16 accused persons in March. Various provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act and the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act were invoked.
Those arrested by the NIA were Machavaram Sudhakar and his wife Durga Purna Govindaraju Vaishali, who ran the Vijayawada company and lived in Chennai; Rajkumar Perumal, a resident of Coimbatore (Tamil Nadu); Pradeep Kumar from Ghaziabad in Uttar Pradesh; and Afghan nationals named Said Mohammad Hussaini, Fardin Amery, Sobhan Aryanfar, Alokozai Mohammad Khan and Murtaza Hakimi.
Alleged absconders identified
The alleged absconders were identified as Afghan nationals, Mohammad Hussain Dad and Mohammad Hassan -- who ran the Kandahar-based company, -- Najibullah Khan Khalid, Esmat Ullah Honari and Abdul Hadi Alizada, and Iranian national Javad Najafi.
During the probe, the NIA found that the syndicate had smuggled in drugs earlier as well. They were involved in a case registered by the DRI on the seizure of 16.10-kg heroin from a warehouse in Delhi and that of 20.25 kg in Punjab’s Hoshiarpur over a year ago.
According to the agency, the Dad brothers had entered into a conspiracy with M. Sudhakar, D.P. Vaishali and Rajkumar Perumal of Aashi Trading Company and others to traffick heroin to India.
“Links of the accused Mohammad Hasan Hussin Dad and Mohammad Hasan Dad and other co-conspirators have also emerged with proscribed terror organisations based in Pakistan. The proceeds...were channelled back to foreign entities through ‘hawala’ channels at the behest of Pakistan-based terror outfits for use in anti-India activities,” the agency had alleged.
Earlier, the NIA had carried out searches at multiple locations in Delhi, Chennai, Coimbatore and Vijayawada.
