Seen here: Gujarat's Porbandar port where the intercepted Pakistan boat was brought
Pakistan today said two boats had been seized by India and asked for details on the arrest of eight crew members suspected to be Pakistani smugglers.
A Pakistani boat was intercepted off Gujarat's Porbandar on Monday. The Coast Guard said 232 packets of narcotics, cellphones and satellite phones were seized. The narcotic, suspected to be heroin, is worth Rs. 600 crore.
"Pakistan High Commission has formally approached the Ministry of External Affairs to share details of seizure of two Pakistani boats and apprehension of their crew members this past weekend as reported by the Indian media," Manzoor Ali Memon, Pakistani Press Attache in New Delhi, said.
Navy sources have said that a second suspicious boat was also spotted the same night, but never found.
Indian officers say satellite communication phones and global positioning systems were "being used to ship contraband to another boat."
But it is not yet known where the narcotics were headed and which boat the Pakistani vessel was trying to contact. The Pakistani boat is docked at Porbandar for further investigation.
The authorities had been tracing the movement of the boat since April 18, Coast Guard officials said at a media conference.
Three months ago, on New Year's Eve, a Pakistani boat laden with explosives caught fire and then exploded killing the four crew members on board after it was intercepted by the Indian Coast Guard, about 365 km off the Porbandar coast.