Ahmedabad: A local court sent five Pakistani nationals, who were arrested in connection with the Rs 3,000 crore drug haul recently, to 12-day police remand after the Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) produced them before an additional chief judicial magistrate on Thursday evening.The five accused, identified as Mohammad Balochi, Shakirullah, Faridullah, Ahmed Khan and Wahidullah Khan, were held on Sept 25 from an Iranian boat, Azad, in the Arabian Sea with 526kg of methamphetamine and heroin. The vessel was intercepted around 160 nautical miles northwest of Lakshadweep and about 490 nautical miles southwest of Mumbai.ATS sought a 14-day custodial interrogation, and the prosecutor submitted that the probe agency needed to probe the Pakistan link, to find out if the boat was loaded at an Iranian port and if the consignment was destined for Tamil Nadu.The probe agency also sought remand of the arrested people to find out the real culprits behind the operation and the money trail through hawala.The Coast Guard carried out sea-air surveillance and tracked the suspicious vessel based on actionable intelligence shared by the Gujarat ATS and central intelligence agencies, the ATS said.The intelligence input indicated that a Nigerian national had recently met a wanted accused based in Gujarat to plan a smuggling operation involving over 500kg of methamphetamine and heroin from Iran into India.
