Lankan held over drug smuggling in India

In the biggest  haul of amphetamine by Bengaluru Customs at Kempegowda International Airport (KIA), sleuths have recovered 1.64 kg of the contraband worth over Indian Rs 64 lakh from a Sri Lankan woman who was smuggling it in the guise of manure, Indian media reported.

Fathima Azeeka Junaideen, 39, was intercepted in the early hours of Saturday when she was to take a connecting flight to Colombo after landing at KIA on Friday on a Jet Airways flight from Chennai, the Times of India reported.

"Acting on specific information of drugs being smuggled to Colombo through Bengaluru, we carried out detailed checks of passengers travelling to the island nation from here," said an officer attached to the Air Intelligence Unit at KIA.

While combing Fathima's check-in luggage, the sleuths were surprised to find many green colour sachets of plant manure alongside 48 pairs of sandals. "Fathima, who claimed to be a beautician running a parlour in Colombo, gave unconvincing answers on why she was carrying so much manure. We opened all the packets to find powdered amphetamine laced with a bit of hashish," the officer added.

A lab test established the 1.64 kg of contraband as amphetamine with traces of hashish. Fathima was a frequent flyer on the Colombo-Chennai sector. The Lankan pleaded ignorance by claiming that she was handed over the packets by an unidentified man in Chennai at the behest of her husband, who, investigators suspect, was orchestrating the drug smuggling from Sri Lanka.

Fathima was produced before a city magistrate who remanded her in judicial custody.