Srinagar: Police on Thursday claimed to have seized a large quantity of heroin worth crores of rupees in international market from Banihal area of Jammu and Kashmir.

“In its endeavors and commitment to make a drug free society, Ramban Police has once again achieved major success by recovering 30 Kilograms of the banned drug ‘heroin’, popularly known as ‘Chitta’ which values in several crores in the International black market,” a police spokesman in a statement issued to GNS said.

The spokesman said: “Acting on a reliable information regarding some illegal/suspicious activity near Railway Station Banihal, Police party led by SDPO Banihal Sajjad Sarwar assisted by SHO Police Station Banihal Aijaz Ahmed Wani rushed to the Railway Station site and started search of the parked vehicles and adjoining hotels/guest houses”.

The spokesman said that nakas were laid on all the link roads connecting Railway Station as well as on the National Highway.

“While searching one of the rooms in ‘hotel Chinar’, an unattended bag was found lying inside the room which, on asking, the hotel owner told to be of the person who had booked one room short while ago. On search of the said bag, 30 packets of apparently equal size and quantity were found lying inside it. Each packet was very carefully packed with a seal impression depicting ‘eagle’ on it and ‘Kudrat Karvaan’ written in Urdu language followed by a specific number. Immediately, Magistrate and FSL team were summoned to the spot,” he said.

The recovery was seized and measured following all legal formalities, which was found to be 30 Kilograms in weight (each packet of one KG weight) and on testing by the FSL team, it was found positive, i.e the banned drug heroine, said the spokesman.

Samples were taken out and sent for advanced chemical analysis. In this regard, case FIR No. 56/2019 stands registered at Police Station Banihal under sections 8/21/22 of NDPS Act.

“During preliminary investigation, the owner of the hotel was further questioned regarding the identity of the accused and relevant record of the hotel was also examined. It came to the notice that the accused had made entry with a fictitious name and mobile number.”

Further investigation is in progress and strenuous efforts are being made to nab the accused and find out the source of the psychotropic substance. (GNS)