E-Paper
Drug lord arrested in Sirsa
In a breakthrough, the district police, on Saturday, arrested Gurlal Singh, kingpin of a multi-layered drug trafficking network being controlled from Sirsa and a key associate of the infamous Makhan gang, from Sirsa in Haryana.
In a breakthrough, the district police, on Saturday, arrested Gurlal Singh, kingpin of a multi-layered drug trafficking network being controlled from Sirsa and a key associate of the infamous Makhan gang, from Sirsa in Haryana. The police have seized half-a-kg heroin, one kg intoxicant powder and one Innova car from him.
Disclosing this here on Saturday at a press conference, senior superintendent of police (SSP) Bhupinder Singh Khattra said that Gurlal Singh had started drug trafficking at an early age of 17 and was arrested for the first time in 2006 in Rama Mandi, Bathinda, when 680-gm smack was seized from him.
However, being a juvenile, he was acquitted by the court. Subsequently, he started drug trafficking in various states including Punjab, apart from feeding the local distribution network of Haryana.
He also said that Gurlal was a key associate of the infamous Makhan Gang which has 80-85 FIRs registered against it.
Gurlal himself is an accused in one case of murder and another of attempt to murder registered at the Dabwali city police station, He has several cases under the NDPS Act pending against him.
Khattra informed that Gurlal Singh was nabbed from his residence at house no. 580, Sector 19, HUDA Colony in Sirsa, after a hot chase from Sardoolgarh, across the inter-state PunjabHaryana border into Sirsa district, with the help of the Sirsa.
He originally belonged to Budh Singhwala village, under Matili police sation, Ganganagar district, Rajasthan, but had shifted his base of operations to Sirsa.
He said that investigations have revealed that Gurlal was the kingpin of a multi-layered drug trafficking network being controlled from Sirsa, which was pumping drugs into various states, including Punjab after smuggling them from Mandsaur, Madhya Pradesh.
Investigations have further revealed that a complex modus operandi was being used by Gurlal Singh to evade detection by the police – use of multiple SIM cards belonging to telecom circles outside Punjab, use of pre-paid SIM cards obtained on fake IDs and frequent change of SIM cards and handsets.
