Punjab Police arrests 20 persons to smash inter-state drug cartel spanning over 50 districts in 11 states
Punjab Police on Friday has busted an inter-state drug cartel operating in more than 50 districts of the country spread across 11 states, using the hawala channel route. Twenty persons have already been arrested with a huge cache of drugs, drug proceeds-money and five vehicles, in an operation that spanned over 8 weeks.
Punjab DGP, Dinkar Gupta, said the drug cartel, known as the `Agra Gang’, was pushing pharmaceutical opioids (drugs) into the markets all across India by diverting drugs in huge quantities from the drug manufacturers, suppliers, wholesalers and retail chemists spread out across the country. Of the 20 people arrested so far, 16 are from Punjab, 2 from UP and one each from Haryana and Delhi.
With the arrest of these gang members, a well-oiled network of drug syndicate pushing consignments to the tune of 10-12 crores of intoxicating pharmaceutical opioids in the form of tablets/capsules/injections/syrups per month into Punjab and other parts of the country has been totally smashed thousands of youth who were or could have got hooked to these drugs have been saved from drug abuse and addiction.
The gang was busted by a Barnala Police team, comprising of Dr. Pragya Jain, IPS, ASP Mehal Kalan, Sukhdev Virk SP(D), Ramninder Deol DSP (D), Insp Baljit Singh Incharge CIA, working under the supervision of SSP Barnala Sandeep Goel. The arrests of the 20 men, including one of the cartel’s kingpins, were made from various locations in Punjab, Haryana, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh and Delhi.
As many as 27,62,137 intoxicating tablets, capsules, injections and syrup bottles were seized from them, along with drug proceeds money of Rs 70,03,800, said Gupta. Interestingly, the Barnala Police had, in March 2020, similarly busted a `Mathura Gang’ and seized 44 lakh intoxicants and Rs 1.5 crore drug money/proceeds in the biggest ever such haul by Punjab Police.
The case began to unravel in May with the arrest of Balwinder Singh @ Nikka S/o Gurjant Singh and four others, along with 2,85,000 intoxicating tablets(Tab Clovidol) during an investigation into FIR no. 72 dated 23.05.2020 u/s 21,22,25,29/61/85 NDPS Act PS Mehal Kalan. This further led to the arrest of Julfikar Ali s/o Mohammadin with 12,000 intoxicating tablets (Tab Clovidol). Julfikar’s questioning revealed the role of Harish as one of the masterminds in the influx and supply of pharmaceutical opioids into Punjab.
Following these arrests, the Barnala Police spent over two months developing the available leads, laying out elaborate surveillance plans, and a trap was then laid out, with a special team being sent to West Bengal from where Harish was nabbed. It was Harish who disclosed the modus operandi of the gang and its chain of supply of Psychotropic Drugs not only in Punjab but in over 11 states of the country.
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An FIR no. 344 dated13.07.2020 u/s 22,25,29/61/85 NDPS Act PS City Barnala was registered and subsequent raids in UP, Haryana Delhi, Punjab led to arrest of other gang members, along with the seizure of a large number of pharmaceutical opioids, the drug proceeds-money, and vehicles.
-PTC News
