ED arrests two in illegal mining case from Himachal Pradesh
A spokesperson of the ED said in a press statement on Tuesday that both the accused were produced before the Special Court (PMLA), Ghaziabad on Tuesday.
In a major success, the Jammu & Kashmir Police’s State Investigation Agency arrested narco-terror kingpin Mohammad Iqbal from Himachal Pradesh’s Mandi district, the SIA said on Friday.
An SIA spokesman said that Iqbal’s arrest came because of technical surveillance and human intelligence that ascertained that he was hiding in the Mandi district. The SIA then dispatched a team led by inspector Lakhvir to Mandi and apprehended Iqbal.
Iqbal was wanted by the police in Poonch where, on May 30, an attempt was made by four associates in a narco-terror module to smuggle drugs and explosives into India across the border fence in Poonch. The suspects were intercepted by some troops of the Indian Army’s Sikh Light Infantry after a firefight, in which a soldier and a terrorist sustained injury. The accused were immediately apprehended with war-like stores of arms, ammunition, IEDs and heroin.
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On July 6, the case was transferred for investigation to the SIA Jammu.
Upon investigation it came to light that in the group of four suspects, one was Mohammad Iqbal of Poonch, who managed to escape from the encounter spot. It is pertinent to note that on August 19, the handler of the group, Mohammad Javed, who was also on the run, was arrested by the SIA Jammu in an operation in Delhi. This further led to the arrest of another co-conspirator, Mohammad Liyaqat, on August 25 by the SIA from Poonch.
Investigation has revealed the role of foreign handlers operating this narco-terror module. So far, six arrests have been made in the case and forward and backward linkages of the narco-terror module are being established.
Further investigation into the syndicate’s cross-border operations revealed that the syndicate was not only involved in narcotics smuggling but also involved in arms and explosives smuggling.
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