Kohima, Oct 5: Nagaland police on Monday seized 290 gold bars weighing 48.14 kg and huge quantities of drugs with a total value of around Rs. 29 crore and arrested nine people.This is for the first time that Nagaland police have seized a smuggling consignment of gold and contraband items worth such huge amount.

Operation at Khuzama in Kohima

Talking to reporters, Nagaland’s Additional Director General of Police (Administration) Sandeep M. Tamgadge said the state police, acting on a tip off, seized the golds and drugs in separate operatiosn on Saturday, Sunday and Monday at the narcotic check points at Khuzama in Kohima.

According to ADGP, the police intercepted a vehicle on the Kohima-Imphal National Highway on Sunday and recovered the smuggled gold hidden inside the cover of gear lever of the vehicle, packed neatly in 29 packets, each packet containing 10 gold bars with the total weight of the gold bars at 48.14 Kg and worth over Rs 22.78 crore.

He informed that this seizure is the state’s single biggest capture of the smuggled bullion.
Two persons – Saurabh Singh (35) and Pawan Kumar (45), both residents of Uttar Pradesh, have been arrested.

Three operations for drugs seizures

According to the ADGP, in three separate operations on Saturday, Sunday and on Monday seven persons were arrested from the same spot and recovered 1.84 kg Heroin packed in 88 soap cases and one kg opium packed in 12 packets.

The value of the drugs is around Rs 6.50 crore.

Smugglings linked to unfenced international border with Myanmar

Officials of Assam Rifles and Border Security Force (BSF) said that the drugs specially the highly addictive methamphetamine, contain a mix of methamphetamine and caffeine and various other contraband, and arms and ammunition are often smuggled from Myanmar, which shares 1,643 km of unfenced border with four northeastern states — Mizoram (510 km), Arunachal Pradesh (520 km), Manipur (398 km) and Nagaland (215 km).

Nagaland shares its border with Myanmar and most of the illegal items are smuggled through Nagaland-Myanmar route.

“We have launched a massive operation against drugs and smuggled goods and so far many arrest were done and huge quantity of contraband were seized by Nagaland police.” said a police source.

On the other hand, Assam police have also launched crackdown against drugs to free the society from its consumption.