Jammu and Kashmir: 2 men held with 413 kgs of poppy straw

Two suspected drug peddlers were arrested after police recovered 413 kgs of poppy straw from a Punjab-bound truck laden with vegetables here, a police official said today.

 A police party signalled a truck to stop for checking at Sunjwan Morh near Bhatindi last evening but the driver tried to speed away, the official said.

He said the police party intercepted the vehicle after a brief chase and recovered the contraband from it.

Two persons including truck driver Umar Riyaz, a resident of Wuyan village of Pampore in south Kashmir, were arrested and booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the official said.

The truck was on its way to Amritsar in Punjab from Kashmir and the value of the seized contraband in the black market was around Rs 17 lakhs, the police official said.

(PTI)