DU, Amity, JNU students held in drugs crackdown before New Year’s eve

The arrested students also informed authorities that drug abuse is rampant in the Delhi University campus area. Narcotics Control Bureau will further verify the racket now.

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday arrested four students from some top colleges in Delhi-NCR and claimed to have seized hasish and Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD) from them.

The drugs were being allegedly sourced from Himachal Pradesh. (Representative image)

Two of the arrested youths, Gaurav Kumar and Tenzin Phunchog, are students of Delhi University’s Hindu College. Officials said they were bright students, having scored top marks in school who later turned into drug addicts. The other two, Sam Mallick and Anirudh Mathur, are students at the Jawaharlal Nehru University and Amity University, respectively.

“We seized three LSD blotters and one kilo of hashish from them. This hashish was bought from villages of Himachal Pradesh for around Rs 3 lakh and was meant to be retailed at a much higher price. We are yet to identify the source of the LSD blotters that also cost around Rs 3 lakh,” said SK Jha, deputy director general, NCB (northern range).

Gaurav Kumar, a 22-year-old student of BA Economics (Honours) at Hindu College, has been identified as one primarily involved in purchasing drugs and selling them to students in and around Delhi University’s north campus. “The other three students too would help him sometimes, but they were essentially consumers of drugs,” said Jha.

Kumar, the son of a government official, was allegedly involved in the drug trade for at least two years, said Jha. “He has said he could not clear one or more papers in his final year exams. He had taken to drug trade to mainly finance his addiction” said Jha.

Over a period of time, Kumar got in touch with three other arrested students, but Jha said the role of many more students of these colleges is being probed. “On December 24, Kumar, Mathur and Phunchog visited Himachal Pradesh just to try different drugs,” said Jha.

“In Himachal, they stayed in Choj village at the home of Neelchand, the kingpin of the drug racket. They also visited other villages such as Kalga, Kheerganga and Malana for procuring different varieties of hashish,” alleged Jha.

The seizures and arrests were made by an NCB team that was on the gang’s trail for several months and kept a watch on their activities in and around DU colleges.

On Thursday, the team received a tip-off that drugs were being parcelled to Jaipur. “We seized a consignment of three LSD blotters from a DTDC office in Vijay Nagar in north Delhi. The courier package provided enough clues to trace the sender,” said the officer.

“The four students were subsequently caught and nore than a kilo of hashish was seized from them. Neelchand, their main supplier in Himachal, is already wanted by us for drug-related cases,” said the officer.

Phunchog, 23, is pursuing MSc in Physics from Hindu college. Mallick, 21, is a postgraduate student of philosophy at JNU. Mathur, 23, is pursuing MBA in hospitality management from Amity University, said the officer.