By Suresh Unnithan
In September 2021 the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence pulled 2,988.21 kg of Afghan heroin out of two containers at Mundra Port — India’s largest single seizure, valued by agencies at up to ₹21,000 crore. The Prime Minister’s “Nasha Mukt Bharat” drive has since been loud, repeated and politically central. The Mundra file has not. Five years later the country is entitled to two plain questions: what happened to that case in open view, and where did the haul itself go?
The powder is the easier answer. It is gone. In June 2022, after a special NIA court in Ahmedabad ordered destruction, the Central Board of Indirect Taxes and Customs incinerated the Mundra consignment as the largest slice of 44,000 kg of seized narcotics burnt at 14 sites. Union Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman watched six of those sites, including Kutch, on a video link. Samples for trial were retained under the NDPS Act. The bulk that filled two jumbo-bagged containers no longer exists. That fact was reported once and then dropped from the national conversation.
The case did not end with the fire.
NIA took over from DRI, invoked UAPA, filed multiple charge-sheets against Indian, Afghan and other accused, and told the Supreme Court in April 2025 that sale proceeds were meant for Lashkar-e-Taiba, with ISI and Iranian middlemen on the route from Kandahar via Bandar Abbas. The same bench, on 13 May 2025, refused bail to Delhi businessman Harpreet Singh Talwar alias Kabir Talwar but called the terror-financing allegation against him premature and speculative, and ordered the special court to sit twice a month for a fast trial.
That speed did not arrive. In April 2026 the Gujarat High Court granted Talwar bail, citing inordinate delay by the NIA despite the Supreme Court’s timeline. In August 2026 the Supreme Court refused the NIA’s plea to cancel that bail, noting that sensitive witnesses qua Talwar had been examined and that long incarceration plus delay weighed in his favour. Other accused, the court said, cannot claim parity; many witnesses are still pending.
The money trail has been quieter still in public, louder inside agencies. The Enforcement Directorate, which opened a PMLA case in 2021, raided Delhi premises in June 2026, including those linked to Talwar, alleging narcotics proceeds were parked in nightclubs. ED later arrested him again under PMLA and has alleged that about ₹74 crore moved by hawala towards Afghanistan and terror funding — an allegation, not a conviction. Wanted accused, including a Dubai-based alleged mastermind, remain outside India.
None of this has produced a public status paper from the Home Ministry, a Lok Sabha statement on conviction progress, or a plain account of how many of the original accused are in custody, on bail, or absconding. The 2021 bust was a week of headlines. After that it became a courtroom file: bail, delay, ED raids, another arrest — fragments, not a national reckoning.
The 2026 cocaine intercept did not change the pattern
On 25–26 May 2026, Gujarat ATS and the Coast Guard recovered 115–119 kg of cocaine, worth about ₹1,150 crore, from bags thrown off MV Europe at Mundra’s outer anchorage. Foreign crew were detained; receivers were picked up in Delhi. Officials called it a success of joint maritime work — the 15th such ATS–Coast Guard operation in five years. It was briefed as an operational win, not as a sequel that demanded answers about the same gateway. Mundra’s owner was not named as an accused. The port was not blacklisted. Indian law does not automatically punish a private operator because third-party cargo or an anchorage drop yields narcotics. Customs, DRI, NIA and ATS examine and seize; the concessionaire runs cranes and yards. No published charge-sheet or gazette notice has displaced that split.
Why the silence sits badly next to the campaign
Nasha Mukt Bharat is a government priority: school drives, police crackdowns, political speeches. A 3-tonne heroin seizure with a live UAPA trial, an ED money-laundering track, wanted foreign accused, and a Supreme Court remark on delay should be the exhibit case. Instead the public hears the slogan and not the file. There has been no standing parliamentary inquiry into how the legal-import channel was used six times, as NIA has alleged; no CAG audit of scanning and risk targeting at Mundra placed in the open; no Ministry of Ports show-cause against the operator. A retired customs officer who had cleared an earlier related consignment died after saying he would make a statement — on NIA’s record, not a court’s finding — and that thread too left the front page.
So the questions that remain after five years are not rhetorical decoration. They are the story.
What has happened to India’s biggest drug haul as a case? It is a slow NIA trial, a PMLA sidecar, bail granted because the clock ran out, and wanted men still abroad.
Where is the haul now? Burned in June 2022 under court order, with samples kept for evidence. The powder is ash. The accountability file is not closed. It is merely unheard.
This report is based on publicly available court records, official agency statements (DRI, NIA, Gujarat ATS, Indian Coast Guard, ED, CBIC), parliamentary and news reports, and Supreme Court proceedings as of September 2026. Seizure quantities, valuations and route details are as stated by investigating agencies and may differ across official briefings.