Gujarat Police has arrested six persons, including two alleged Pakistani ISI agents, and claimed to have busted a network involving fishermen for smuggling arms, ammunition, narcotics and fake currency into India.
Authorities seized boats and Global Positioning System equipment from the persons who were arrested on Thursday, police said in Ahmedabad on Friday.
"We had information that a network of Indian and Pakistani fishermen trained by the ISI were planning to meet in mid-sea between India and Pakistan and smuggle in arms, ammunition, narcotics and fake currency into Kutch," an official of the Special Operations Group in the border district of Kutch told PTI.
One of the ISI agents, identified as Abdul Gafar, was arrested a few days ago. Based on his interrogation, the remaining members of the network, including another ISI agent named Abdul Khalid, were arrested on Thursday from different parts of Kutch district, the official said.
Both ISI agents were of Pakistani origin and were involved in several narcotics-related cases in the past, he said.
"The alarming thing is that they were using the sea route for anti-national activities even though they were fishermen. That will have to be monitored now," the official said.
The four others arrested were local fishermen who had petty cases pending against them.
The official said the interrogation of Gafar had revealed that the same network had recently smuggled fake currency with a face value of Rs 24 lakh from Pakistan and sent it to Mumbai.
"A police team has also gone to Mumbai to follow the trail as we have some leads in that area. Some of the fake currency was also sent to Hyderabad," the official said.
Those arrested have been booked under the Indian Penal Code and National Security Act.
