Four aides of Rohru-based drug racket kingpin arrested
The police have nabbed four more associates of a Rohru-based kingpin of an inter-state illicit drug racket. The arrested persons are the associates of Shahi Mahatma alias Shashi Negi who was running a drug racket from Rohru in the upper Shimla region.
The accused have been identified as Sahil Chauhan (32) of Lower Koti village in Rohru; Surjeet (21) of Rohtan village in Jubbal tehsil, Shimla; Vikas Ranta (24) of Bijauri village in Rohru and Arvind Chauhan (34) of Dhanoti village in Rohru.
Shimla Superintendent of Police (SP) Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi said the accused were involved in illicit drug trade and were mainly active in the upper Shimla areas. They used to work as conduits for Shashi Negi, the SP added.
He said the accused had been arrested from Rohru and Jubbal and further investigation was under way.
The SP said kingpin Negi had a team of 40 to 45 persons who were involved in illicit drug trade. Over 20 of his associates have been arrested till date. He said more associates of Shahi Mahatma would be arrested soon.
Shahi Mahatma who was arrested by the police in September from Theog had links with Delhi-based Nigerian drug peddlers, besides drug peddlers from Haryana and Punjab.
He was running the racket in a very organised manner. Despite being the kingpin, he never came in the picture as he did not contact the buyer directly. He used middlemen to deliver and purchase contraband and kept 10 to 12 mobile phones that he changed frequently.
Negi used to verify a buyer by checking his PAN and Aadhaar details after which his associates would add the buyer in a WhatsApp group.
After complet verification, Negi’s associates would contact the buyer to make payment via UPI. Once the payment was done, they would keep the contraband at a specific location like under a tree, near a stone or at the roadside and would instruct the buyer to collect the contraband from the said location.
Negi was arrested after one of his associates from Jammu and Kashmir was nabbed with 486-gram ‘chitta’ from Khada Pathar in Shimla district.
This year, Shimla police have arrested around 372 drug peddlers in 192 cases registered across the district under the NDPS Act. Out of the arrested, 100 are inter-state drug peddlers.
Worked as conduits
The accused were involved in illicit drug trade and were mainly active in the upper Shimla areas. They used to work as conduits for Shashi Negi, the kingpin, who is already arrested. — Sanjeev Kumar Gandhi, Shimla Superintendent of Police
