E-Paper
Punjab Police bust drugs, arms smuggling racket; 2 held
The police teams have also recovered 19-kg heroin, ₹23 lakh drug money, seven pistols — one 9mm Glock, three .30 bore pistols and three .32 bore pistols — along with Pakistan stamped ammunition, currency counting machine and drone equipment, including a remote controller and spare fans from their possession
Punjab Police on Sunday busted a cross-border drug and arms smuggling racket being operated by a US-based smuggler Manpreet, alias Mannu Mahawa, with the arrest of its two key operatives in Amritsar.
Director general of police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav said the arrested persons were identified as Sandeep Singh, alias Laddi, of Guru Ki Wadali in Amritsar and Roshan of Heir in Amritsar.
He said police teams have also recovered 19-kg heroin, ₹23 lakh drug money, seven pistols — one 9mm Glock, three .30 bore pistols and three .32 bore pistols — along with Pakistan stamped ammunition, currency counting machine and drone equipment, including a remote controller and spare fans from their possession, besides, impounding their Hyundai Verna car (PB06BB4064), in which they were going to supply the heroin consignment.
“Preliminary investigations have revealed that the accused persons were directly in touch with the US-based smuggler and were supplying heroin across the state after smuggling from Pakistan. Apart from investigating backward and forward linkages, Amritsar commissionerate police teams are also working on the financial investigation on the Hawala links and property details for getting them freeze,” he added.
Sharing details of the operation, Amritsar commissioner of police (CP) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said police teams received reliable inputs that associates of smugglers Mannu Mahawa have retrieved the heroin consignment sent by Pakistan-based smugglers from across the border and were on the way to deliver it to someone.
“Acting promptly, police teams from CIA staff-3 under the supervision of DCP Harpreet Mandher, ADCP City-3 Abhimanyu Rana and ACP Central Surinder Kumar conducted a special police checking in the area of Islamabad and arrested both the accused persons when they were waiting for someone to deliver the consignment,” he said.
Bhullar said further efforts were being made to ascertain the total quantity of narcotics and weapons procured by the arrested accused so far.
A case has been registered under sections 21 and 29 of the NDPS Act and Section 25 of the Arms Act at Police Station Islamabad in Amritsar.
