Chandigarh, September 13: The Amritsar Rural police Friday arrested a Pakistan-backed drug smuggler and recovered 7.5 kg heroin as well as Rs. 28 Lakh in drug money.
The arrest of Shamsher Singh Shera s/o Nanak singh r/o Bhaini, PS Gharinda, who was acting as a conduit, has exposed the nexus between drug smugglers operating in Punjab and their handlers across the border. A Punjab Police spokesperson disclosed that a Bolero vehicle and four mobile handsets had also been recovered from the accused.
Preliminary investigations had revealed that the accused was in constant touch with has Pakistan-based handlers over phone and social media/OTT applications. The consignment seized from him was meant for supply to local smugglers/ peddlers, and further investigation was underway to unveil the entire conspiracy, said the spokesperson.
A case FIR No. 166 u/s 21 of NDPS Act, 1985, dated 13.09.2019 of PS Ajanala, has been registered against the accused.
Giving details of the operation, the spokesperson said the Amritsar Rural Police received a tip-off about a consignment being pushed from across the border near village Bharobhal in the area of P.S Gharinda. A trap was set up by the police to nab the accused.
Notably, the Amritsar police has unearthed many drug smuggling rackets in the past five months following the launch of an offensive by the district administration to choke the supply of narcotics. A total of 18.426 kgs of heroin and 79329 intoxicating capsules/tablets had been seized in this period.
According to the spokesperson, a major conspiracy to smuggle 532 kgs of drugs by Pakistan based narco-smugglers via Attari was unearthed by the district police in this period, which also witnessed the busting of an espionage/drug smuggling module run by an Army constable Malkit Singh of village Mohawa, with more than 5 kg of heroin seized.
In another success, in August, the police seized 1 KG of Heroin, .32 bore Pistol & 61 rounds with drug money worth Rs 23 lac, a Swift car and three mobiles, with the arrest of J&K based drug offender Muhammad Ashraf. Another cache of 7.5 KGs of heroin was seized earlier this month, the spokesperson further said.
The police had also forfeited 57 kanals & 12 Marlas of land of another drug accused, Manjinder Singh r/o Tola Nangal, Ajnala, Amritsar Rural, last month.
The spokesperson said these successes had been possible due to the persistent efforts of the district police teams. Besides taking care of law and order as well prevention/ detection of crime, Zail incharges were being tasked with conducting village meetings and interacting with the village youth to gather actionable inputs on drugs in their respective areas. More than 550 such meetings had been held in the district since May this year, with youth being able to directly inform the SSP Amritsar Rural on his official social media accounts such as FB/ WhatsApp etc. about any drug related development.
Besides, Cordon and Search operations (CASOs) were being conducted in the district on a weekly basis to raid the dens of the street level drug offenders, peddlers, smugglers and other anti-social elements.
In addition, five Anti Narco Raiding Teams were functioning round the clock to conduct intelligence based anti-narco raids, and undertake daily and weekly monitoring of the progress through VHS conference. More than 950 such raids have since been conducted under the command of DSP Anti-Narco Cell under the overall supervision and monitoring of the SSP.
