NAGAON: A police team in Assam's Nagaon town on Friday recovered and seized a huge quantity of narcotic drugs valued at around Rs 5 crore, and arrested three people in this connection.
A team of Nagaon district police launched an operation after receiving a secret tip-off on Friday. The team conducted a raid in the Christianbasti area of Nagaon town and recovered contraband comprising of more than 800 grams of heroin stashed in 60 soap cases.
"We launched the operation at the Christianbasti area based on secret information. We recovered and seized 60 soap cases of suspected heroin containing around 800 grams from three persons," Nabaneet Mahanta, Superintendent of Police of Nagaon district said.
The police officer added that the market value of the seized drugs has been estimated at around Rs 5 crore. He said that the arrested persons were transporting the drugs from Dimapur to Nagaon when they were apprehended.
The three arrested persons involved in the drug smuggling were identified as Chanu Sheikh, Gulzar Hussain and Nizamuddin.
The police have registered a case and said further investigation is going on.
Earlier, Assam Police on Thursday managed to seize a large quantity of cannabis and apprehended six persons in Karimganj district.
According to information received from the Karimganj district police, a team from Nilambazar police station conducted an anti-narcotic operation which resulted in seizure of 33.5 kg of cannabis at Nilambazar station road in Karimganj district.
In the past two years, Assam Police has made tremendous progress in its war on drugs and recovered large quantities of narcotic drugs, while apprehending scores of drug smugglers and peddlers.
At the end of May this year, Assam DGP GP Singh provided information on the drug seizures and arrests made by the police in the period from May 2021 to May 2023.
According to the information provided by DGP Singh, drugs worth over Rs 1,430 crores were seized in Assam, along with the registration of 5,580 cases made under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. During the same period, 9,309 suspected drug traffickers have been apprehended, including 26 habitual traffickers. Police registered cases against them and legal proceedings are continuing, he informed.
Providing details, the DGP stated that, among seizures of narcotics made, police have recovered 239 kgs of heroin, 71,902 kgs of ganja or cannabis, 283 kgs of opium, a total of 98.68 lakh psychotropic tablets, 4.78 lakh cough syrup bottles, 214 kgs of cannabis derivatives, and 40 kgs of cocaine.
Apart from operations against drug smugglers, the police also destroyed opium cultivation being done on over 400 acres of land and cannabis plants on nearly 20 acres of land in different districts of the state, the DGP informed.
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