Foreign cigarettes worth Rs 3.38 crore seized from Tuichang bridge, Lawngtlai, one arrested A defence spokesman said Assam Rifles along with Mizoram Police recovered 260 cases of foreign cigarettes smuggled from Myanmar. The accused is from Champhai district.
The entire consignment has been handed over to Police Department of Hnahthial, Lawngtlai for further legal action. Assam Rifles, called the ‘Sentinels of Northeast’ is doubling up efforts to catch the kingpins behind the smuggling of contraband in Mizoram.
Mizoram has six districts – Champhai, Siaha, Lawngtlai, Hnahthial, Saitual and Serchhip – sharing 510 km of unfenced border with Myanmar’s Chin state but Champhai district is the hub of smuggling of drugs, arms and ammunition and other contraband.
Assam Rifles troops have seized drugs worth Rs 74 crore in Tripura and Manipur in the past week. On January 16, in a major blow to the drug trade, the para-military troops intercepted and recovered 1.5 lakh Yaba tablets and 15 kg Brown Sugar worth around Rs 62 crore from Mata Village in Manipur’s Churachandpur District.
Two drug peddlers including a woman were arrested and Rs 3.37 lakh and four smart mobile phones with Indian and Myanmar SIM cards were recovered from them. On January 20, Assam Rifles seized 60,000 Yaba tablets worth Rs 12 crore in West Tripura and arrested two drug peddlers.
The drug peddlers are Kanai Das (36) and Kishan Kumar Sarkar (32) both from West Tripura. The seized drugs and the arrested individuals have been handed over to Directorate of Revenue Intelligence for further investigation and legal action.
