Heroin seized in Khawzawl district

In a peculiar and unprecedented incident on Wednesday, drug smugglers accidentally ran into what they believed to be security forces in Myanmar border Chawngtlai village in north eastern Mizoram Khawzawl when they were nabbed and the heroin they were trafficking was seized. Members of the Chawngtlai unit of the Young Mizo Association (YMA) were filming a scene in the outskirts of the village involving men in uniform for a state-level short film competition organised by the YMA central committee.

“While we were busy shooting, two persons on a scooter approached the filming location. Upon seeing the actors in khaki uniforms, they made a quick u-turn, assuming they were real security forces,” said a YMA leader from Chawngtlai village in Khawzawl district. Suspicious of their behaviour, the film crew watched them and saw the suspects taking packages from the scooter’s box and hiding them in the bushes.

The crew quickly apprehended the suspects, discovering that the packages contained 20 boxes of heroin. They handed the two 17-year-old suspects, residents of Zote village near Champhai town, and the contraband atKhawzawl police station. The seized heroin weighed 253 grams and was valued at Rs 7.05 lakh in the local market. The accused confessed they were transporting the heroin from Zote village to Zobawk locality of Lunglei town in southern Mizoram.EOM