M A I N   N E W S

Punjab’s Drug Menace - II
The flourishing supply chain and its deadly effect
Varinder Singh
Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 2
The boom in the synthetic drugs business in Punjab has seen addiction among the youth reach menacing levels in the state. An indication is the mushrooming of chemist shops even in villages.

“In villages where medical vendors are not present, the ‘void’ is filled by unscrupulous elements or peddlers, who run their drug trade in the garb of ‘dhabas’, ‘karyana stores’ and ‘rehris’ selling goods of daily use,” says Dr Balraj Gupta, a Jalandhar-based medical specialist, who regularly treats drug addicts.

Tech-savvy couriers promptly supply banned substances — right from prescription drugs to “chitta” (heroin) and from “kal mai” or “bhua” (opium) to smack — right on the doorsteps of young or not-so-young addicts and even to their hostels in colleges and universities. “In Phillaur, heroin or opium is ordered over the phone and is delivered on the doorstep,” says newly elected Jalandhar Congress MP Santokh Singh Chaudhary.

Chaudhary feels the current drive by the Punjab Police of arresting “consumers” and “small-time peddlers” is not the real solution. “Consumers should be sent to de-addiction centres. Big fish or politicians patronising big drug suppliers are still untouched,” he alleges, adding that the police action is merely an “eyewash”.

Delivery on doorstep

Chaudhary is not playing politics — the problem is serious. An 18-year-old former student of a prestigious school near Pathankot is hooked to heroin and at times spends Rs 8,000-9,000 a day. He is now being treated at the Red Cross-run- Gurdaspur-based rehabilitation centre. He reveals how he used to order drugs over the phone from Amritsar if he had problems getting them locally. Couriers on motorbikes would deliver the banned substance on his doorstep well within the promised time, he claims.

A 32-year-old young businessman from Amritsar graduated from “Parvonspas” capsules (an anti-spasmodic drug) to morphine and even heroin to meet his growing urge. If he couldn’t find the substance, he would visit “Anngarh” locality of Amritsar — known as the retail “mandi” of all genres of drugs and intoxicants — to get it.

“In Anngarh, policemen look the other way even if they see a deal going on between a drug peddler and a buyer. You can have ‘chitta’ from a ‘rickshawala’ there,” he says. Revealing the network of drug peddlers in educational institutes, a former BArch student of a Jalandhar-based institution says: “‘Aunties’ do brisk business by selling drugs such as heroin, smack and synthetic drugs on campuses of various educational institutes of Punjab.”

A 17-year-old truck driver from Ambala has now given up peddling drugs. “I used to sell heroin for Rs 800 a gram. Girls would come with their boyfriends from universities and institutes of Chandigarh to collect their ‘source of happiness’. We used to source the contraband from Lucknow and even sell it in smaller quantities costing Rs 300 a piece. I used to make Rs 15,000 after investing Rs 5,000 the same day.”

The big nexus

The truck driver is just a small fish in the huge drug racket that has begun to unravel, indicating a powerful politician-drug mafia nexus. Recently, the names of two powerful politicians — Punjab Revenue Minister Bikram Singh Majithia and Jail Minister Sarwan Singh Phillaur’s son Damanvir Singh — were dragged in by dismissed Punjab Police DSP Jagdish Singh Bhola, the alleged kingpin of Rs 6,000-crore synthetic drug racket.

Bhola made the allegations after he was arrested and questioned by the Enforcement Directorate, which is investigating the case. Majithia and Damanvir, however, have rubbished the allegations against them, terming these a “cheap plot cooked up by the Congress”. Sarwan Singh Phillaur has even resigned from the Cabinet on “moral grounds” after his family’s name got dragged into the drug racket.

With as many as 52 arrests made so far and properties worth Rs 100 crore spread across six states already attached, the drug nexus involving Bhola and over three dozen suspected NRIs is one of the most well-knit drug chains in the country and abroad to have been exposed in recent times.

Bhola had learnt the trade of manufacturing synthetic drugs such as “ice” (methamphetamine) and started producing these in his house located at Phase-10, Mohali.

The police later claimed Bhola was the mastermind of the synthetic drug racket exposed by Jalandhar (Rural), Fatehgarh Sahib and Patiala police late last year. “His proximity to some drug manufacturing unit owners helped him produce the drug in a sophisticated manner in Baddi,” a police officer had said. Bhola’s questioning revealed they used some African nationals as couriers to ship consignments from Chandigarh to New Delhi.

Measures adopted

After the recent outcry over the sale of restricted medicines without doctor’s prescription, state Drugs Controller Ajay Singla said they had taken strict measures to curb the practice, including suspending the licence of chemists across the state and making it mandatory for chemists to keep record of every transaction of prescription drugs. Wholesale agents have been directed to get payments via cheques to prevent illegal sale.

Singla claimed the illegal sale of restricted drugs without prescription had come to a “complete” halt. “So much so that even genuine patients and doctors often claim they are not getting such medicines in the market even if they need them,” said Singla.

Problem persists

Dr Romesh Mahajan, project director of the Gurdaspur-based Red Cross-run de-addiction centre, however, differs. “The police crackdown has not resulted in a complete breakdown of the supply chain to addicts. Drugs are still available, though the number of vends has come down. In fact, it needs a comprehensive approach to tackle the problem and not just fill jails with addicts. The only visible result of the recent crackdown is that the prices of drugs for addicts have shot up,” says Dr Mahajan. He adds that the “big fish” are still eluding the police net.

Dr Rajeev Gupta, a Ludhiana-based psychiatrist, who has been seeing 15-20 young addicts every day says: “Though the open sale of prescription drugs has been restricted due to the police action in Punjab, heroin is still readily available.”

Gurbinder Singh, an inspector (Doaba region) in the Punjab’s Drug Controller’s Office, says his team has suspended licences of 35 chemists allegedly found selling prescription medicines illegally in April in Jalandhar and Kapurthala districts. When told that the abusers were still getting such drugs on the black market, he said he would investigate the matter.

NCB Zonal Director Kaustabh Sharma says the NCB team is making efforts to curb the supply of opiates from Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh. At the same time, he admits the pilferage of controlled drug substances from drug manufacturing factories has been going on.

“Shortage of staff and non-revision of rewards to informers for over 20 years have contributed to the problem. We have 25 people to carry out checks in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Haryana (excluding the NCR). But we have registered 47 cases and arrested 26 peddlers,” he says.

Cracking the ‘ice’

• “Ice”, a party drug, was introduced to addicts in Punjab in 2009. Its first seizure was made by two Jalandhar-based Assistant Inspector Generals (AIGs) of the Counter-Intelligence Wing of the Punjab Police - Jaskaran Singh and Opinderjit Singh Ghumman - in 2009 when they seized 4 kg and 17 kg of the contraband, respectively. The Narcotics Control Bureau also recovered a consignment of 25 kg of the contraband from dismissed Punjab Police DSP Jagdish Bhola in 2009 in Mumbai.
• The biggest initial recovery of 17 kg was made by Ghumman, currently posted as Barnala SSP, from Narinder Goyal, a businessman based in Barnala and Chandigarh, on December 31, 2009. A Canadian citizen, originally from Vietnam and an expert in making "ice", was associated with Goyal, who owned a rice-sheller, and Bhola. The Baddi-based factory of Goyal was later raided by the Punjab Police. At the same time, a laboratory run by Raja Kandola was unearthed by the Jalandhar (Rural) police in a Samrala farmhouse in June 2012.
• Sources say “ice” is widely used in “raves” in metros such as Mumbai and New Delhi, and in big cities of Punjab such as Ludhiana, Jalandhar, besides the periphery of Chandigarh.