Army jawan among 4 more nabbed in drugs and weapons smuggling case busted last week
Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, July 20
The Punjab Police have arrested an Army jawan and three more accused in connection with the illegal arms and drug smuggling racket busted last week with the arrest of a BSF personnel and three others.
The total number of persons arrested in the case so far now stands at eight, said DGP Punjab Dinkar Gupta, adding that the Punjab Police was actively engaged in following the money trail to eradicate the drug menace from the state.
Giving details of the latest arrests, the DGP said that Ramandeep Singh, an Indian Army soldier, was apprehended from Bareilly (Uttar Pradesh), where he was currently posted, on the basis of disclosures made by BSF Constable Sumit Kumar, who was arrested along with three accomplices by Jalandhar (Rural) police a week ago.
Ramandeep’s three accomplices, Taranjot Singh alias Tanna, Jagjit Singh alias Laddi, and Satinder Singh alias Kala, have also been arrested and are being brought on production warrants.
Another Rs 10 lakh has been recovered from Kala as drug money, taking the total amount of such money seized in the case to Rs 42.30 lakh.
Sumit, who belonged to the same village—Magar Mudian, PS Dorangla, district Gurdaspur, as Ramandeep, had disclosed during questioning that he was lured by his village classmate—the Army jawan—into the cross-border narco-weapons smuggling racket.
The duo was also lodged together in Gurdaspur jail after committing a murder in their village.
Sumit Kumar was bailed out on January 4, 2018, and Ramandeep Singh was bailed out on September 14, 2019.
According to the DGP, Ramandeep was running the drugs and weapons smuggling racket in conspiracy with Taranjot Singh and Satinder Singh.
Kala was, for some time, lodged in Amritsar jail, where he came in contact with Maulvi alias Mulla, a Pakistani national, who introduced him to Pakistani smugglers.
Gupta said that from Amritsar jail, Satinder was shifted to Kapurthala jail where he befriended Taranjot Singh and made him an accomplice.
After Kala underlined the need for involvement of a BSF man in the racket, Ramandeep Singh persuaded Sumit to join the drug smuggling module.
Throwing light on the modus operandi of the gang, the DGP said that Sumit used to send photographs of the fencing, drug-delivery locations and others to Tanna and Kala.
After the delivery of the consignment on the Indian side at a pre-determined time and place, three other accomplices of Tanna used to collect it from Sumit Kumar.
Gupta said that Jagjit Singh used to provide his Swift car to them for transport of the drug consignments.
The Director General of Police said that based on investigations carried out so far, these accused are suspected to have smuggled in 42 packets of heroin, a 9mm foreign-made pistol (with 80 live rounds and 2 live rounds of 12 bore gun) so far, adding that they had received Rs 39 lakh as drug proceeds from Pakistan based smugglers so far.
He said that out of Rs 39 lakh, Rs 32.30 lakh was received by Sumit Kumar to be distributed equally between him and Ramandeep Singh.
In line with its strategy of ‘following the money trail’ to hit out hard at the various pillars of the drug smuggling and supply trade, based in Pakistan, UAE and various parts of India, such as Punjab, J&K, Delhi etc, the Punjab Police have successfully busted many modules in the narco-terrorism supply chain, which is operated under the direct watch of the ISI as well as the rest of the Pak establishment to finance its terror operations, said the DGP.
