A special NIA court in Ahmedabad has sentenced six Pakistani nationals to eight years of rigorous imprisonment for their involvement in the 2019 mid-sea seizure of 330 kg of 'brown heroin' off Gujarat's Jakhau coast. An Indian man, allegedly the intended recipient, was acquitted due to benefit of doubt. The National Investigation Agency had probed the case, alleging funds from the smuggling were intended for a terror organisation.
According to the NCRB, cannabis and opium derivatives continued to dominate India's drug seizure landscape in 2024, with enforcement agencies confiscating over 9.42 lakh kilograms of narcotic substances under the NDPS Act.
The Chhattisgarh assembly was disrupted by Congress protests over alleged illegal opium cultivation on a BJP functionary's farm, leading to the suspension of several MLAs.
It claimed that Pakistani smugglers many times tried to use the Gujarat coast to smuggle drugs, but all such attempts were foiled.
The top court said that the amount of neutral substance in a mixture has to be included along with the actual weight of the banned substances for determining whether it is a 'small or commercial quantity' under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
'Quite the raconteur, much to the dismay of Courtroom 51's CBI Special Judge Jayendra Chandrasen Jagdale, Christopher 'Doglis' Marquis, a Bandra dog-breeder who was Prosecution Witness No 57 and a panch or witness, seemed to move into the witness box with glee, embellishing every answer that he gave to the lawyers' questions with a variety of additional details.' Vaihayasi Pande Daniel reports from the Sheena Bora murder trial.
