Delhi: Nabbed drug dealer uses 5 loo breaks to plot escape through window shaft

The 26-year-old drug peddler fled from the crime branch’s Daryaganj office by faking loose motions, breaking the toilet ventilator shaft. He was, however, arrested again a day after his escape from outer Delhi.

Between 3am to 4am on May 28, as the city slept, a Delhi police constable helped an alleged drug dealer visit the toilet, at least five times. The man had complained of suffering from ‘stomach ache’.

The drug dealer was caught a day later by the police from outer Delhi. (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

A police constable waited outside the washroom each time, unaware of the fact that the 26-year-old known drug peddler was plotting his escape by breaking the window shaft of the washroom.

A day after his escape, when police traced and nabbed the accused, Hemraj alias Shera, from outer Delhi, he was stoned.

Arrested for smuggling heroin into the city, Hemraj was on a five-day crime branch custody. He was nabbed with around 800 grams of heroin on him, worth Rs 1 crore in the international market. The drugs were smuggled from Uttar Pradesh. Hemraj was lodged in the crime branch’s narcotics office in Central Delhi’s Daryaganj.

Police said that on his second night in custody (May 28), Hemraj woke up a constable at around 3am and told him that he needed to go to the toilet. The cop accompanied him; told him not to lock the door from inside and waited patiently outside. They returned after 10 minutes.

The constable alleged that between 3am and 4.30am, he accompanied Hemraj to the toilet at least four times. At around 4.40am, when Hemraj went inside for the fifth time, the constable realised something was wrong. There was no noise from inside the washroom. The cop immediately forced the door open and found Hemraj missing . There was debris from the wall of the window shaft that Hemraj had broken and fled.

However, Hemraj did not stop here.

He came back later to the room, in which he had been locked up earlier, and found the constable inside. He then locked the door from outside and vanished in the dark.

Crime branch officers later searched all rooms in the building hoping to find Hemraj, but all they could find were wet foot and fingerprints across the building. Nobody saw Hemraj leave the building or had any information until a tip-off the following morning that he had been spotted snorting heroin near his home.

“Hemraj is not only a drug dealer, but an addict himself. We knew he was desperate to do drugs and our teams kept an eye on his regular hideouts near his home. When our officer nabbed him, he was stoned. Fortunately he is not complaining of stomach ache again,”an officer said.