The Supreme Court denied bail to Tariq Ahmed Lone in a significant narco-terrorism case involving a 532 kg heroin seizure worth Rs 2,700 crore, citing serious charges against him.
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain the bail plea of an accused in a high-profile narco-terrorism case involving the seizure of 532 kg of heroin and 52 kg of mixed narcotics worth Rs 2,700 crore at the Attari Integrated Check Post in 2019.
A bench comprising Justices M M Sundresh and Prashant Kumar Mishra rejected the plea of Tariq Ahmed Lone, a resident of Kupwara, Jammu and Kashmir, who sought bail on the grounds that the contraband was not recovered from him.
“The charges are very serious,”
the bench observed while dismissing the petition.
Lone had approached the Supreme Court against an October 4, 2024, order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court that denied him bail. His bail plea was earlier rejected by a special NIA court in Mohali on February 11, 2021.
Senior advocate Colin Gonsalves, representing Lone, argued that his client had no direct connection with the seized narcotics.
- The truck carrying the contraband and the godown where it was stored did not belong to him.
- Four co-accused persons in the case had already been granted bail.
Despite these arguments, the Supreme Court refused bail, but granted Lone the liberty to file a fresh bail plea if circumstances change.
The National Investigation Agency (NIA) alleged that a Pakistani truck entered Indian territory on June 26, 2019, carrying a declared rock salt consignment imported by Gurpinder Singh of M/s Kanishk Enterprises from Pakistan-based M/s Global Vision Impex.
Upon examination, authorities found 16 polypropylene bags containing a whitish powder suspected to be heroin. Further investigation confirmed that the consignment contained heroin and mixed narcotics worth thousands of crores in the international market.
Initially, Gurpinder Singh and Tariq Ahmed Lone were arrested by the Customs Department, but the case was later transferred to the NIA due to its national and international ramifications.
The NIA’s probe revealed that:
- An international drug cartel operating out of Pakistan and Afghanistan was behind the smuggling operation.
- A chargesheet was filed against 11 accused, though Gurpinder Singh died during the proceedings.
Calling it a case of narco-terrorism, the NIA maintained that the massive drug haul was part of a larger conspiracy affecting national security.
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