Airport Security Force (ASF) at Islamabad's Benazir Bhutto International Airport confiscated 70 capsules filled with heroin from a passenger headed to Jeddah, Saudi Arabia on Thursday.

The passenger ─ who hails from Sargodha ─ has been arrested and handed over to the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF).

According to ANF sources, the suspect, identified as Muhammad Irshad, had hidden the heroin-filled capsules in diapers.

The suspect has been charged with drug smuggling in a case registered by the ANF. He was later shifted to the ANF police station.

The sources also noted that the 70 confiscated capsules had more than 400 grammes of heroin stored in them.

Sources in the ANF also confirmed that they were trying to establish whether the drugs belonged to the passenger himself or to an accomplice the suspect might have been travelling with.

The confiscation is the latest in a series of drug smuggling cases that have emerged involving national airlines in recent days.

Twenty kilogrammes of heroin were recovered from a Pakistan International Airlines (PIA) flight at Islamabad airport on May 22.

Flight PK785 was destined to depart for London from Benazir Bhutto International Airport when it was searched in a scheduled inspection, after which the contraband was recovered from the plane.

A week prior to this, British officials said they had found a "quantity of heroin" on the same flight in London after it landed at Heathrow Airport.

Subsequently on May 24, PIA maintenance crew discovered 27 kilogrammes of heroin on board another PIA aircraft.

The heroin was concealed in lavatory panels and was discovered while routine maintenance was being carried out at the PIA hangar at Karachi’s international airport.