Patiala, December 22
The international drug ring busted jointly by the Batala and Delhi police has again highlighted how, despite stepped-up patrolling by the BSF and the Punjab Police, heroin estimated worth over Rs 375 crore has found its way into India through a porous border in Amritsar this year.

South India and Sri Lanka have received the bulk of narcotics, the police said.

A special Delhi Police team in a joint operation with Punjab cops had exposed a drug syndicate involved in trans-border smuggling of heroin from Pakistan through Punjab border into India, by arresting two alleged Afghanistan-migrated Sikhs on Saturday.

The accused arrested in Delhi were identified as Rajmeet Singh and Shurbir Singh from whom heroin weighing 9 kg worth Rs 30 crore in the international market was recovered. The accused are members of a large trans-national narcotics racket. Together, they have been instrumental in smuggling over 125 kg heroin into India since January this year when they started smuggling the contraband. The role of Afghan-Sikhs settled in Punjab and Delhi is under the scanner, said a police officer.

Sources said investigations have revealed how the heroin was brought through the Amritsar border. It was later transported through train and by road to the national capital, where it had many buyers. “This is a well knit nexus that stretches from Amritsar to south India”, he said.

Sources said the breakthrough came following the recent arrest of one Satinderjit Singh, alias Mintu, by Batala Police on December 16. Satinder is an accused in the murder of a Kanpur MLA almost a decade back. He was absconding in an attempt to murder case.

“Satinder was arrested with 4 kg heroin in Batala. His questioning revealed the name of Shurbir Singh — an Afghan Sikh based in Delhi’s Mahavir Nagar area. We formed teams that laid a trap in Delhi and once we interacted with our counterparts in Delhi’s special cell, they zeroed in on Rajmeet Singh. Both were then arrested”, said Batala SSP, SS Mand. “We will bring Shurbir Singh to identify the peddlers who received heroin on the border and supplied it to Satinder and Rajmeet”, he told The Tribune.

Sources said the state police were trying to verify the credentials of hundreds of Afghan Sikh families settled in various parts of Punjab. “A majority of the youth belonging to this community are not well educated and it would be worth a watch to see how they are managing such a lifestyle. Prima facie, it has come to the fore that Rajmeet and Shurbir had a lavish lifestyle,” a source said.

Speaking to TNS, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Special Cell) Sanjeev Kumar Yadav stated that high-quality Afghanistan-made heroin was pushed into Punjab through the Amritsar border from where couriers settled in nearby villages supplied it to conduits (Afghan Sikhs and other smugglers) who brought it to Delhi. “Several conduits from Andhra Pradesh were frequently visiting Delhi and meeting certain Sikh families, who had migrated from Afghanistan two decades ago. From there, it (heroin) went to southern India and then eventually to Sri Lanka”, he said.

Yadav said the kinpins —Ali, based in Kuwait and Samiullah, based in Afghanistan — were engaged in this trade which came to be known after the arrest of one Venugopal Reddy.

Meanwhile, Mand said the role of certain officials at the border and some other conduits is under the scanner for helping these smugglers. The nexus remained intact for the past almost 11 months.