Drug lord Raja Kandola acquitted in smuggling case

The Court of Additional Sessions Judge Shiv Mohan Garg has acquitted drug lord Ranjit Singh, known as ‘Raja Kandola’, and his associate Gurnam Singh in a 2017 drug smuggling case. Both were exonerated in the matter of an alleged heroin seizure.

The court held that there was insufficient evidence linking Kandola and Gurnam to the charges and the prosecution failed to substantiate its claim that Kandola was coordinating with Pakistan-based traffickers via phone from jail.

The case, registered on July 19, 2017, by the Punjab Police’s Special Task Force (STF) at Ludhiana’s Moti Nagar police station, accused Kandola and his associate based on an FIR. The STF had initially charged Palwinderjeet Singh Sidhu, alias Pinda, and Ravinder Singh, alias Ravi, after allegedly seizing 2.5 kg of heroin from them. The authorities contended that Kandola, who was then in a Kapurthala jail, maintained communication with Pakistan-based drug traffickers and worked alongside Pinda and Ravi to smuggle heroin into India for local distribution. The FIR was registered under Sections 22, 27A and 29 of the NDPS Act.

Notably, the two other accused, Pinda and Ravi, who had got bail, failed to attend subsequent hearings and were declared proclaimed offenders. According to Gupta, the STF claimed to have seized 2.5 kg of heroin each from Pinda and Ravi but nothing was found in Kandola’s possession.