Ahmedabad Special Operations Group (SOG) Crime Branch arrested an international narcotics smuggler who had escaped a Nepalese prison in Gujarat.[1][2] The fugitive was identified as Dharmesh Rasiklal Chunara, who had been on the run since a jailbreak in Kathmandu.[1]
Chunara is a resident of the Thakkarbapa Nagar area in Ahmedabad and was intercepted at Kathmandu Airport in July 2024.[1] He had arrived on flight TG-319 from Bangkok carrying 13 kilograms of high-grade hybrid cannabis, or ganja.[1][2] Police put the haul’s estimated street value at Rs 13 crore, and he was imprisoned in Kathmandu’s Bhadra Jail under the NDPS Act.[1][2]
In September 2025 Nepal was rocked by Gen-Z protests, during which protesters stormed and vandalized Bhadra Jail.[1][2] Several inmates, including Chunara, broke through the facility’s defenses and fled in the resulting anarchy.[1] Nepal shared a list of fugitive Indian nationals with the Sashastra Seema Bal in Delhi, which was circulated to state police, and a dedicated team was formed under CID Crime guidance to track him.[1] Police Sub-Inspector JB Desai’s team used human intelligence and technical analysis to pinpoint Chunara’s location in Ahmedabad after initial records lacked his full address.[1] On interrogation after being intercepted in Ahmedabad, Chunara admitted slipping away in the prison riot and crossing the Sonauli border back into India to hide in his hometown.[1] The Ahmedabad SOG Crime Branch took him into custody and is initiating legal procedures following the recapture.[1]
Officers learnt he was hiding at his mother-in-law’s house in the Ahmedabad area and moved in to arrest him.[2] Although no fresh criminal case had been registered against him in Ahmedabad, police said his role in international drug smuggling is under active scrutiny.[2] Officers are probing whether earlier consignments made it into India and whether he was part of a larger cross-border narcotics network.[2] Authorities shared details of multiple Indian escapees, two of them from Gujarat including one from Surat, and efforts are on to trace the others now that he is in custody.[2] Police said he will be handed over to central agencies, after which formal procedures will begin to extradite him back to Nepal to face trial.[2]
