Heroin worth more than Rs 25 crore was seized from a Hyundai Creta while it was travelling through a crowded Rasulpur market in East Burdwan’s Memari late on Monday, police said.

Officers of the special task force of Calcutta police said the operation was carried out based on specific information they had got while probing a narcotics racket unearthed in Calcutta last month.

A man named Sunil Howlader, who was allegedly inside the car, has been arrested on the charge of possessing the banned psychotropic substance. He has been remanded in police custody.

The police suspect the consignment was meant for Calcutta. However, they are yet to ascertain to whom it was to be delivered and where.

“A team from the Special Task Force (STF), acting on a specific tip-off, intercepted a car at Rasulpur market in the Memari police station area around 11.35pm on Monday. The team found 5.01kg of heroin in the car and seized it,” said a senior officer of the STF.

“The operation was based on leads we got while investigating a racket we had busted in the middle of February. A gang, whose members were from Bengal, Assam and Manipur, was captured. They had managed to smuggle heroin into the heart of the city and got arrested. In this case, too, the consignment was meant for Calcutta.”

In February, STF sleuths had arrested five persons in the Cossipore area on the charge of smuggling heroin and yaba drugs worth Rs 17.5 crore into the city.

STF officers said yaba drugs — commonly known as party pills — act as stimulants and have a target audience in the cities.

“Yaba tablets are a composition of amphetamine and caffeine and act as brain stimulants. Items from large consignments are distributed to peddlers, who in turn sell them to targets. We are trying to ascertain the chain and the people involved in the trade,” said the officer.