Huge cache of opium tablets seized in Amritsar

CHANDIGARH: With elections barely three weeks away, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has made one of the biggest seizures of opium tablets and paste in Punjab in the past couple of days.
Two raids on consecutive days in Amritsar have yielded 2.94 lakh tablets of 'Kamini' containing afeem (laudanum), the purest form of opium, along with more than 93 kg of Barshasha, a Unani formulation. The worth of the lot in black market is estimated to be close to Rs 5 crore.
NCB has launched a drive against misuse of ayurvedic and Unani formulation that are heavily misused by addicts.NCB has launched a drive against misuse of ayurvedic and Unani formulation that are not banned under the law despite having high opium content.
On Wednesday , a joint team of NCB and Amritsar police inspected a godown in Banke Bihari Gari on Batala road and recovered 1.68 lakh tablets. An FIR in this regard was filed the same day by the local police against the owner of the illegal godown. On Thursday evening, an NCB team headed by superintendent Sachin Gularya raided a residence in Golden Avenue area of Amritsar and recovered 1.26 lakh Kamini tablets and 93.78kg of Barshaha.
The raid continued till Friday 4am.
For NCB this is the biggest recovery of illegal stash, zonal director of the bureau Kaustubh Sharma said. The tablets recovered are worth close to Rs 1crore in retail markets and close to twice of that when sold illegally .The recovery also led to the arrest of Gurwinder Singh. Even though he had no licence to stock the medicines containing narcotics, he used to purchase them in bulk and sell them in retail at almost twice the normal price.
“On January 3, NCB had recovered 5,077 tablets and also arrested the biggest culprit of black marketing of herbal formulations Sanjay Sharma,“ Gularya told TOI. All the accused have been booked under the NDPS Act.