Mumbai DRI makes bonfire of drugs worth around Rs 1,500 cr
Darpan News Desk The Canadian Press, 26 May, 2023 10:49 AM
Raigad, May 26 (IANS) Huge quantities of various narcotics and psychotropic drugs worth around Rs 1,500 crore, seized by the Department of Revenue Intelligence and the Narcotics Cell, were burned and destroyed at the MIDC in Taloja on Friday, officials said.
The bonfire was carried out in the presence of top officials of the High-Level Drug Disposal Committee of the Mumbai Customs Zone-III as directed by the Union Finance Ministry.
The drugs that were reduced to ashes at the Mumbai Waste Management Ltd premises, included heroin (16.633 kg), cocaine (9.035 kg), methamphetamine (198.1 kg), marijuana (32.915 kg), mandrax tablets (81.91 kg) and MDMA tablets (134 gms), said an official.
Lakhimpur Kheri Chief Medical Officer (CMO), Santosh Gupta, said that one staff member was also found Covid-positive during a contact tracing exercise on Sunday after which the entire campus has been turned into a quarantine centre by the Health department. This is the highest number of new Covid cases reported in a district in a day this year.
During thorough search of the area on Monday, BSF troops recovered six packets, containing 6.27 kg heroin, inside a bag lying in the fields near the village. A motorcycle was also found nearby.
According to the police, a 67-year-old man had filed a complaint with the cyber police station in Shahdara district wherein he alleged that on March 18, he had received a WhatsApp video call from an unknown number in which a girl was performing some obscene act.
The accused -- 19-year-old Rohit Kumar and 26-year-old Kamal -- are residents of Sitapur. During interrogation, Rohit told police that the truck driver Harpinder, 60, originally from Faridkot district, tried to harass him sexually under the influence of alcohol.
XBB 1.16 was first found in January. However, while only two samples were found then, the number rose to 138 in February, and in March till date total 204 samples of this variant have been found through genome sequencing. The highest number of cases of this variant have been found in Maharashtra at 105, followed by Telangana 93, Karnataka 57 and Gujarat 54 as per the data.
Surat district court in Gujarat on Thursday convicted Congress MP Rahul Gandhi in a criminal defamation case against him over his alleged 'Modi surname' remark in 2019.Gandhi was convicted under Indian Penal Code sections 499 and 500. The maximum possible punishment under this section is two years.
