Bid to smuggle drugs in apple boxes foiled, 120 kg poppy seized in JK's Kathua

Excise department sleuths have foiled a bid to smuggle drugs in apple boxes from Kashmir to Punjab and impounded a truck with 120 kg of poppy in Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district, officials said on Tuesday.

A team of the excise department intercepted the Punjab-bound truck at Lakhanpur on Monday night and recovered several boxes of apples, containing a total of 120 kg poppy, they said.

Truck driver Rajinder Singh was arrested and a case registered after the seizure, they said.

The officials said the truck was used to smuggle poppy in apple boxes from the Kashmir Valley.

There are reports that a large-scale smuggling of narcotics is being carried out in the grab of transporting apples from the Valley as there is less checking of trucks carrying the fruit, they added.