Aizawl: A combined team of law enforcing agencies seized heroin and foreign-origin cigarettes valued at Rs Rs 5.67 crore and apprehended five smugglers from different places of Mizoram on Thursday, an official said.
Officials said that combined teams of Assam Rifles, Customs Preventive Force, Excise and Narcotics department officials and special narcotics police station (CID-Crime) of Mizoram police in separate operations seized the drugs and the foreign-origin cigarettes from Aizawl and Champhai districts.
Five apprehended smugglers have been handed over to the Customs Preventive Force and Excise and Narcotics department for further legal proceedings.
Officials said that the heroin and foreign-origin cigarettes were smuggled from neighbouring Myanmar.
Ongoing smuggling of contraband items is a major cause of concern for the state of Mizoram and India, an Assam Rifles statement said.
It said that the Assam Rifles, rightly christened as the ‘Sentinels of Northeast’, have continued their efforts against illegal smuggling and has also doubled its efforts to nab the kingpins of the smuggling of contraband items in Mizoram.
(IANS)
