The National Investigation Agency on Wednesday conducted raids in 324 locations across eight states in connection with terrorist-gangster-drug smugglers nexus cases. The federal agency, in coordination with Punjab Police and Haryana Police, seized a huge cache of arms and munitions during the raids under “Operation Dhvast” reported news agency ANI. 


Several suspects were detained during the raids conducted in eight states — Punjab, Delhi, Haryana, UP, Rajasthan, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Chandigarh, and Madhya Pradesh — and a huge cache of arms and ammunition was seized, besides other incriminating material, reported the news agency. 


The NIA raided 129 doors, while Punjab Police launched searches at 143 places and Haryana Police visited 52 locations in 10 districts simultaneously in the raids that began at 5:30 am today. 


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The day-long searches were aimed at breaking the terror nexus of Arsh Dalla, a designated terrorist, apart from dreaded gangsters such as Lawrence Bishnoi, Chhenu Pehalwan, Deepak Teetar, Bhupi Rana, Vikash Lagarpuriya, Ashish Choudhary, Gurpreet Sekhon, Dilpreet Baba, Harsimrat Simma, and Anuradha.


As per the report, the raid was aimed at weapon suppliers, financiers, logistic providers, and hawala operators associated with the hardcore gangs working with drug smugglers and terrorists based out of other countries like Pakistan and Canada. 


One Pistol, assorted ammunition (both live and used cartridges), in addition to 60 mobile phones, five DVRs, 20 SIM cards, one hard disk, one pen drive, a dongle, one WiFi router, a digital watch, two memory cards, 75 documents and Rs 39,60,000 in cash were seized by the agency and the police. 


Raids were conducted in Abohar, Moga, Fazilka, Ludhiana, Mohali, Ferozpur, Tarn Taran, Ludhiana, Faridkot, Roopnagar, Nawashahar, Ferozpur, Amritsar, Patiala, Bernala and Jalandhar districts of Punjab. 


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Gurugram, Yamuna Nagar, Ambala, Rohtak, Sirsa, Kurukshetra, and Jhajjar districts in Haryana. 


In Rajasthan, the raids were conducted in the districts of Sri Ganga Nagar, Churu, Bikaner, and Jaipur, and Baghpat, Meerut, and Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh. 


Raids were also conducted in Bhind and Barwani districts of Madhya Pradesh. 


Dwarka, North, North-east, South-east, South, Outer, and Outer North districts of Delhi and NCR were also covered in the raids.