Brits tip off Bengal cops about drug mafia in State

Brits tip off Bengal cops about drug mafia in State
SUBRATA NAGCHOUDHURY

CALCUTTA, MARCH 19: It was literally a wake-up call from the British Intelligence that made the Bengal police sit up and realize that Calcutta had turned into a major trafficking route for the international drug mafia.

Senior officials of the state police as well as those of the Zonal Narcotics Control Bureau now admit that drug consignments not only from India but from Pakistan too were being routed through Calcutta and its suburbs. These consignments are reportedly taken to Bangladesh, from where it is shipped to the international market in Europe.

In fact, it was the chance seizure of a heroine consignment at an European port from a ship that had sailed from Bangladesh about a year back, which blew the lid off this clandestine trade.

The British Customs, which seized the articles, alerted its Embassy at Delhi. Later, some British Intelligence officials, after having gathered adequate clues to hand over to the Criminal Investigation Department of the Bengal police, flew down to Calcutta. The team also shared information with the Zonal Narcotics Control Bureau in Calcutta.

The British team then went to Bangladesh, where they were successful in catching three Pakistanis from a hotel in Dhaka in 1999-end. The arrests led to the seizure of four kg of heroine, of "absolutely pure quality" (85% purity). The consignment would have fetched the dealers Rs 96 crore in the international market.

A senior official said that the arrested Pakistanis had admitted to having carried the consignment through Calcutta to one of the border points between Bangladesh and West Bengal. It was subsequently taken to Dhaka to be shipped to the international market, he added.

"The British tip-off was really a revelation to us," said M.K. Singh, the Additional Director General of Police, State Criminal Investigation Department. Senior officials of the NCB too acknowledged that the British leads had helped in linking up several seizures made during the past two years.

One of the biggest hauls in 1999, for instance, was of 32 kg of high quality heroine from Bally Halt station in the northern outskirts of Calcutta. The consignment was heading for Lalgola in Murshidabad, a border district in West Bengal which is known for the smuggling syndicates which operate between Bengal and Bangladesh, said Amitabha Hore, Assistant Director, NCB.

In 1999, the NCB officers seized seven kg of heroine, part of it from Sealdah station and the rest from Balasore in Orissa. The arrested men admitted that the drugs were being despatched to agents in border areas for transmission to Bangladesh. The Border Security Force along the international boundary has also been making regular seizures of narcotics.