Punjab police busts a heroin smugglers gang with arrest of four including ex-Army man

Chandigarh, July 4: In a major crackdown on the smuggling of narcotics and weapons from across the border from Pakistan, the Punjab Police on Tuesday busted a gang of heroin smugglers and arrested four persons, including an ex-Army man. 

Also, police have seized from the suspects 14.8 kgs of heroin, valuing approximately Rs. 74 crores in the international market, along with one.30 bore Pistol. Taking an immediate action, a case has been registered under NDPS Act and Arms Act at PS SSOC Amritsar and launched the investigation.

One of the four arrested were identified as a Tarwinder Singh an ex-serviceman, who served in the Indian Army (13 Sikh) as a sepoy for 16 years before retiring on pension in 2016. The others have been identified as Sukhraj Singh, Gurlal Singh and Sarabjit Singh.

During the interrogation, the suspects have named one BSF constable posted at the border and two other associates as being involved in the smuggling racket. However, the BSF authorities have been informed about the constable’s active collusion and conspiracy in drug smuggling and they have advised to initiate the necessary action against him.

During preliminary investigations, the accused disclosed that they were successful in bringing the drug consignment from across-the-border in the Ramdass sector during the intervening night of 29/30 June 2018.

They further revealed that one BSF constable, Chenthilraj Kanagaraj, who was on duty on the border on that night, was part of their conspiracy to smuggle heroin from Pakistan to India and had actively colluded with them.

They have also disclosed the names of two other associates i.e. Bikramjit Singh and Gurjant Singh who were part of the team that had retrieved the heroin consignment from the border. Efforts are afoot to apprehend these two.

Investigations further revealed that Tarwinder Singh, Bikramjit Singh and Chenthilraj Kanagaraj were in touch with Pakistan-based smugglers for quite some time. They were using different social media apps to communicate amongst themselves and with their Pakistan based associates.

It has also been learned that Bikramjit Singh was earlier arrested in a heroin-related NDPS case in 2017 and had been in Jail from where he was bailed out in September 2017.

Importantly, the arrests followed information received by the State Special Operations Cell (SSOC) that some drug smugglers from Amritsar/Tarn Taran were in contact with Pak-based smugglers and were indulging in heroin smuggling through the Ramdas sector of the Indo-Pak border.