Acting on a tip off, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) sleuths of both Meghalaya and Assam conducted a joint operation last Saturday evening where a huge quantity of opium and other banned items were seized from an eating joint in Marwet area, they said.
About 20 kg of opium and 105 kg of poppy straw powder worth about Rs 28 lakh were seized from the possessions of the owner of one of the roadside eating joint along the Shillong - Guwahati road with two of his aides, sources in the NCB told PTI.
The owner of the eating joint, M Singh and his aides were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS), they said.
The arrest came in a few days after the arrest of five persons in Guwahati where about five kg of the banned substances were seized.
Narcotics Control Bureau officials said the opium was smuggled from Indo-Myanmar border via Manipur and into Guwahati and its outskirts before being smuggled into the rest of the country.