An official announced on April 25 that the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad (ATS) had taken custody of jailed gangster Lawrence Bishnoi in connection with a case of drug smuggling across international borders.
On April 24, a Delhi court authorised the Gujarat Anti-Terrorist Squad to house Bishnoi in transit remand while he is being held in Tihar prison.
The ATS wants to question the gangster about his possible links in connection with the seizure 40 kg of heroin worth more than Rs. 200 crore from a Pakistani fishing boat in the Arabian Sea off the Gujarat coast in September last year.
“We have got Bishnoi’s custody and our teams are already on the way to Gujarat. He will be produced in a court in Kutch district by Tuesday evening,” a senior ATS official said.
In a joint operation with the Indian Coast Guard on September 14, 2022, the Gujarat ATS stopped a Pakistani fishing boat in the middle of the ocean close to Jakhau Harbour in the Kutch district and seized 40 kg of heroin worth more than Rs. 200 crore.
Six Pakistani nationals on board the boat, named ‘Al Tayyasa’, were also arrested at that time.
Subsequent investigations revealed the heroin was meant to be transported to northern States like Delhi and Punjab by road with the help of two Delhi residents — Sartaj Malik and Jaggi Singh alias Virpal Singh — who were supposed to receive the contraband. They were arrested later on.
The Gujarat police had also said the drugs were being smuggled as part of a racket run by two traffickers, including a Nigerian national, currently lodged in jails in Punjab.
When the eight accused were questioned, it came out that Nigerian drug traffickers Ani Chief Obinna alias Chief and Meeraz Rehmani were running the operation from behind bars. Rehmani and Obinna were detained at a jail in Kapurthala, and Amritsar, respectively. Both of them are alleged to have been acting at Bishnoi’s direction.
They were running the racket using WhatsApp and VOIP (Internet phone) calls, police earlier said.
In the Morbi drug seizure case of 2021, Gujarat police had also found the role of Bharat Bhushan alias Bhola Shooter, a member of the Lawrence Bishnoi gang who was allegedly running the drug network from a Punjab jail. Bhushan died in jail recently.