Police in Dhading arrested an Indian truck driver with 164 kg of hashish early on 22 March 2019.[1] Acting on a tip-off, a joint team from the Dhading district police and the Gajuri area police stopped the truck, number UP-19T 5171, at about 4 am at Gajuri bazaar on the Prithvi Highway while it was travelling from Kathmandu toward Uttar Pradesh in India.[1]
Inspectors Bhola Man Singh and Navraj Dhungel led the search, which found eight polythene sacks of hashish hidden in a secretly built false ceiling in the truck’s cabin.[1] Police arrested the driver, 23-year-old Mau Mahatab of Uttar Pradesh, on a smuggling charge.[1]
The district police chief, Superintendent Raj Kumar Baidawar, said it was the third large drug bust in his district in 40 days.[1] He said interrogations showed smugglers had shifted from the Birgunj crossing to the Sunauli crossing, dealt directly with kingpins rather than through middlemen, and that police were checking phone records for links between the seizures.[1]
