1,100 kgs of poppy seized from 3 Punjab-bound vehicles in J-K

Police on Wednesday seized nearly 1,100 kgs of poppy straw from two Punjab-bound vehicles in Udhampur and Samba districts of Jammu and Kashmir, police said.

Two drivers and a helper, all residents of Punjab, were arrested as their attempt to smuggle the narcotic substance from Kashmir was scuttled, a police official said.

He said a police party seized 708.4 kgs of poppy straw from a truck while checking it at Motorshed near Chenani along Jammu-Srinagar national highway in Udhampur district.

Driver Satnam Singh and his helper Sohan Lal, both residents of Hoshiarpur in Punjab, were arrested and a case under NDPS Act was lodged against them, he said.

Earlier during the day, the official said the police also recovered 391 kgs of poppy straw from a Punjab-bound vehicle on the Jammu-Pathankot highway and arrested a suspected narcotics smuggler.

Nirmal Singh, a resident of Malpur village of Hoshiarpur, was allegedly smuggling the contraband from Kashmir to Punjab in a dumper when the vehicle was intercepted by a police party at Balole near Bari Brahmana along the highway, the official said.

Terming Singh's arrest as a "major breakthrough" in the war against drugs, the official said 20 bags of poppy straw weighing 391.5 kgs were seized.

Singh too was booked under the NDPS Act and further investigation is on.