Kannur, May 28 (PTI) Amid rising incidents of seizure of drugs on high seas, Navy chief Admiral R Hari Kumar on Saturday said the contrabands originated from Afghanistan and efforts were on to curb the "menace."

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Addressing the media here, after the passing out parade of the cadets of the Indian Navy and Indian Coast Guard, the Navy chief said illegal activities were increasingly being reported after the collapse of the Afghanistan government and the Taliban takeover.

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"Drug menace is severe now. After the collapse of Afghanistan, drugs are being smuggled in fishing boats through the ocean," Kumar said.

His statement comes days after the seizure of heroin worth over Rs 1,500 crore from the high seas of Lakshadweep coast. The Indian agencies also busted such rackets off Gujarat coast recently.

A gang of international smugglers was apprehended by Indian agencies on May 20 while trying to smuggle around 218 kg of heroin, worth over Rs 1,500 crore in the international market, off the Lakshadweep coast.

The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had in September last year impounded two containers carrying about 2,988.22 kg of heroin at Mundra port in Gujarat.

He said the smugglers use fishing boats to ship the drugs to Gujarat while some smugglers use the sea near Maldives and Seychelles to transfer the smuggled drugs from the boats.

"The Navy and the Coast Guard continuously monitor the movement of the suspicious vessels on the high seas and apprehend them and conduct searches. It will take at least four hours to complete the search of the boat. There are numerous vessels in the sea. We need to identify the boat based on the intelligence information," he said.

He said the Navy has cooperated with other government agencies and had seized drugs worth over Rs 3,000 crore in the last year alone.

Kumar was at the Naval academy here to attend and review the passing out parade of 250 Indian Navy and Coast Guard cadets.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)