Kolkata: The Special Task Force (STF) of Kolkata Police recovered 20 kg charas from a posh apartment at Joka on Diamond Harbour Road and arrested three persons who had plans to smuggle the stuff to China in the wee hours on Sunday. The market price of the seized consignment is around Rs 85 lakh. "The trio had adopted a unique modus operandi for smuggling. They used to keep charas inside date palm packets and used to smuggle it from from India to China," a senior STF official said. The sleuths have recovered three air tickets of China from the three accused. The trio has been identified as Zakir Ahmed , Mashuque Ahamed and Prasanta Das. The sleuths had source information regarding Zakirs involvement in charas smuggling and he was the first among the three who was intercepted. The police interrogated him and accordingly raided the Joka apartment from where two of his associates were nabbed. It is learnt that Zakir and Prasanta were involved in the business of date palm for the last few years and had taken an apartment at Joka under Haridevpur police station area on rent. The locals knew that the two had made good money with their thriving business. It was a year back when Mashuque who is a resident of Mominpore also joined their business. The three would buy date palm and cut it with a knife to extract its seeds. Then they would put small packets of charas inside it. After that they would put them in suitcases and smuggle them to China. The three were set to leave for China on Sunday night and had plans to catch flight from the city airport. "We would interrogate the three and find out whether more persons are involved in this smuggling," the STF official said.

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