CHANDIGARH/JALANDHAR/GORAYA
The war against drugs waged on the directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann got a major breakthrough after Jalandhar Rural Police arrested a big fish drug trafficker identified as Malkiat Singh alias Kali, who sent three swimmers to fetch a consignment of 50kg heroin from Pakistan, said Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav here on Thursday.
“Police teams have also seized 9 Kg heroin— a portion of the 50kg heroin consignment, from his possession,” he said while adding that 22.5 kg of the heroin had already been recovered by the Punjab Police taking the total recovery to 31.5 kg.
The development came less than a month after the Jalandhar Rural Police had arrested drug smuggler Joga Singh, who swam into the Pakistan jurisdiction to retrieve the heroin consignment and 8kg heroin was recovered from him. Earlier, the SSOC Amritsar had arrested a drug smuggler identified as Shinder Singh after recovering 10kg heroin and Rs 1.5 lakhs of drug money from his possession. A woman drug smuggler identified as Amandeep Kaur alias Deep Bhai linked to this module was also arrested with 1kg of heroin, while, another drug smuggler Shinder pal alias Pappu was arrested with 500 grams of heroin from Mehatpur.
DGP Gaurav Yadav, while terming recovery of this big haul of heroin as the result of vigorous follow-up investigations by the Punjab Police, said that following forward and backward linkages in this case, Jalandhar Rural Police have arrested the accused drug trafficker Malkiat Kali, who is resident of village Tendi Wala in Ferozepur, from near Boparai Canal Bridge near Goraya and recovered the heroin kept in his shoulder bag.
Divulging details, SSP Jalandhar Rural Mukhwinder Singh Bhullar said that accused Malkiat Kali revealed that he was in regular touch with a Pak-based drug smuggler identified as Haider Ali, who helped him in smuggle the heroin consignments to India in lieu of hawala operator.
“Malkiat Kali also revealed that he had sent Joga Singh along with two more persons to Pakistan using a riverine route to fetch the 50 heroin consignment, which was equally distributed between his party and Joga Singh’s party,” he said while adding that further investigations are on, and Police teams are on a manhunt to arrest remaining drug smugglers involved in this module.
SSP said a case under section 21-(C/) 61/85 of the NDPS Act has been registered against the accused at Goraya police station