Thane police hand over kingpin of ₹2,000-cr drug haul to Gujarat

The Thane police on Saturday handed over the custody of Kishoresingh Bhavsingh Rathod, 42, the prime accused in the Rs2,000-crore drug haul case, to the Gujarat

The Thane police on Saturday handed over the custody of Kishoresingh Bhavsingh Rathod, 42, the prime accused in the Rs2,000-crore drug haul case, to the Gujarat police.

This occurred after a court in Gujarat sent a notice to the Thane police asking for his custody.

Rathod, son of a Gujarat MLA, was arrested in January and was in the custody of the Thane police. Officials from the Gujarat police said that the city police were supposed to give them Rathod’s custody after they were done questioning and filing a chargesheet against him.

“We had told the Thane police that they need to handover Rathod to us once they finished interrogating him and filed the chargesheet. It had been two months since the police completed investigating him but they did not give us his custody. So we had to approach a court,” said an officer from the Gujarat police who did not wish to be named.

He added, “After they received the court’s notice, they contacted us on Friday and said that they would hand Rathod over to us on Saturday.” The alleged kingpin is currently lodged in Gujarat’s Sabarmati jail.

The officer added, “During investigation, we also found out that he was tipped off about the raid at The Solapur factory and so he went absconding. Rathod also told us how ‘bhabhi’ actor Mamta Kulkarni and her husband Vicky Goswami were involved in the drug trade. He claimed that he was present at several meetings held by the couple outside India.

The Thane police also approached a court and issued a transfer order against Rathod so that they can claim his custody if needed during investigation.

On April 13, 2016, the police arrested two people with ephedrine worth Rs12 lakh and later seized drugs worth Rs2,000 crore at a Avon Pharma Life Sciences Private Limited factory in Solapur. So far, 14 people have been arrested and five accused including Kulkarni are on the run.