RAWALPINDI, April 30: A Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) shuttle bus driver was allegedly caught red-handed while handing over three heroin-laden jackets to a Dubai-bound passenger at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport on Monday.

Sources in the airport told Dawn that the bus driver and the passenger of the Dubai-bound PIA flight (PK-211) were taken into custody by the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) for further investigation. They said two more persons were suspected to be involved in the drug trafficking attempt.

Waqar Azeem, the shuttle bus driver, was taking the passengers from the departure lounge to the aircraft when he was spotted, by a senior officer of the ANF, handing over the heroin-laden jackets to the passenger in the bus.

The sources said the attempt to smuggle the narcotics was foiled after a deputy director of the ANF posing himself as a passenger started surveillance of the passengers in the check-in lounge.

“Though he could not spot the suspected passenger in the lounge, he boarded the shuttle bus and caught the driver while handing over the jackets to the passenger who was travelling without hand baggage,” the sources said, and added: “Each jacket contained two kg heroin.”

The passenger was identified as Mohammad Riaz Sarwar, a resident of Sargodha.

When contacted, Azhar Butt, the spokesman for PIA, said it was the passenger who was caught while carrying narcotics though the driver was also taken into custody. “The driver will be freed soon,” he said but gave no details.