The Airport Security Force (ASF) on Thursday night seized at least a kilogramme of heroin from a passenger at the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, said officials.

Officials said that the passenger, Zabat ur Rehman, was due to travel on Pakistan International Airlines' (PIA) Jeddah-bound flight 741 when the drugs that were hidden in his clothes were discovered, officials said.

Rehman, a resident of Hangu, was then handed over to the Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) and transferred to ANF's office in Rawalpindi.

A First Information Report was later registered against him under the Control of Narcotics Substances Act, 1997.

In the past, several cases of narcotics being seized from flights originating from Pakistan have surfaced.

In June, 70 capsules filled with heroin were confiscated from a passenger also headed to Jeddah at Islamabad airport.

Sources had noted that the confiscated capsules had more than 400 grammes of heroin stored in them.

Stories of attempts to smuggle drugs on the domestic carrier were reported with relative frequency in May.

On May 24, PIA maintenance crew discovered 27 kilogrammes of heroin on board a PIA aircraft.

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

Two days earlier, on May 22, 20 kilogrammes of heroin were recovered from a PIA flight at Islamabad airport.

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 found from the plane.

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