NIA links Rs 21,000 crore Gujarat drug haul to Pahalgam attack

NEW DELHI: Linking the Pahalgam terror strikes by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) and Pakistan’s ISI to the seizure of 3,000 kg of heroin worth Rs 21,000 crore at Mundra port, National Investigation Agency (NIA) told Supreme Court that this was part of LeT’s narco-trafficking strategy—to raise money for its terror activities and weaken India by selling drugs to the youth.

“Look what they did to India at Pahalgam by shooting innocent tourists,” additional solicitor general Aishwarya Bhati told a bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh on Wednesday and explained how similar consignments were earlier brought to India from Afghanistan using valid documents relating to talc stones. The money raised through the sale of drugs, imported using valid channels and stored at warehouses in Neb Sarai and Alipur in Delhi, was then routed to LeT, they said, while alleging that petitioner Kabir Talwar, who is seeking bail, was part of the drug syndicate that facilitated the nefarious operation.

In its affidavit, NIA said, “The narco-trafficker located in Afghanistan, through the help of Pakistan-based intelligence agency ISI and Iranian middlemen imported a large consignment of 2,988.2 kgs of narcotic drugs i.e. heroin, valued at Rs 21,000 crore through the same modus operandi, which consignment was sent from Afghanistan via Iran and which was imported in India concealed as talc powder. The proceeds of this sale was to be used for funding .”

“This case is a case of largest intercepted consignment of narco- substance being brought to India through illicit means, which was to be used, not only, to wreak a havoc among public (which was the targeted user of the said narco-product) but also, to use the sale proceeds to fund terrorism,” NIA said.