The sensitive Lakhpat coastal sector of Kutch is described as a soft passage for smuggling where security agencies had intensified close patrolling when the haul was found.[1] A Border Security Force water-wing team on Sunday patrol near the uninhabited Ibrahim Bet island in Lakhpat taluka spotted suspicious objects and landed to search the area.[1] In mud along the bank the team found 10 packets of what the report describes as Afghani charas lying unclaimed, with no suspects present.[1] The BSF seized all 10 suspect packets and began steps to hand them to Narayan Sarovar police station for further legal action and forensic examination.[1]
Officers assessed on a preliminary view that the consignment had been thrown into the sea long earlier and washed ashore with the waves.[1] The find came during heightened water-and-land search operations and patrolling by the BSF, Coast Guard and Marine Police across the creek and island areas.[1] The article links the alert to an interception only days earlier in which a Pakistani boat was caught in the Kutch creek zone with four intruders.[1]
It says smugglers fearing capture often dump consignments at sea, which then drift to the Kutch coast.[1] It says about more than 2,500 unclaimed drug packets have been found along various Kutch coasts over the past five to six years, while heroin consignments worth crores of rupees were previously caught at ports such as Mundra, keeping coastal security on high alert.[1]
