Follow Us
Akash Ghai
Tribune News Service
Mohali, February 14
Key convict in the multi-crore drug scam Jagdish Bhola and his accomplices had a novel way of storing drugs and intoxicant powder to dodge the police.
Bhola and his accomplices used to put drugs in stolen vehicles that they usually parked at different locations, mainly public places.
These facts were revealed in the judgment in the case, which was registered under Sections 379, 411, 473, 468, 471 and 120B of IPC, Sections 21, 22, 25, 25A, 27, 29, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act and Sections 25, 54 and 59 of the Arms Act against Bhola and 12 other accused, including Jagjit Singh Chahal, Satinder Dhama and Sarabjit Singh Saba, at the Banur police station.
The Punjab Police have recovered at least 10 different vehicles, which were used to store drugs and intoxicant powder by the accused, from parking lots of public places like dhabas, located on highways and in markets.
The special CBI court at Mohali had convicted Bhola along with 21 other accused in five different cases yesterday. The convicts used stolen vehicles to store and supply ICE (synthetic drug), pseudoephedrine and other intoxicant powders after affixing fake number plates on them.
The police had recovered a Verna car (on which a fake number HR 26 AJ 1019 was found affixed) from Satinder Dhama at the time of his arrest on May 5, 2013. The police had recovered 500 gram ICE (methamphetamine) from the car.
Then the police had recovered a Fortuner, Skoda Superb, Scorpio, Skoda Sonata, Honda Accord, Verna, Pajero car, Jeep and two Balero cars.
According to DSP Davinder Singh Attri, the investigating officer in the drug case in question, most of these vehicles were stolen from different places.
“The convicts were clever as they used to put drugs in such vehicles after affixing fake number plates on them and most of these vehicles were recovered from different public places,” DSP Attri said, adding that a large quantity of drugs was also recovered from the SYL canal near Banur here and some pharmaceutical factories at Baddi.
The police had recovered Skoda Superb from the back of a dhaba on the Banur-Tepla road in which the miscreants had concealed 10-kg pseudoephedrine and methamphetamine in a polythene bag.
The Fortuner was found parked in a parking lot of a private hospital at Patiala. The police had recovered 10 kg pseudoephedrine fromit. Apart from it, the police had also recovered at least eight RCs of different vehicles from the car and other fake vehicle documents.
The Scorpio was recovered from the market of Sector 17 in Chandigarh and the police recovered two pistols (7.63-mm bore and 380/9-mm bore and 30 cartridges from it.
From Skoda Sonata, which was recovered from Jagdish Bhola and Sarabjit Singh Saba at the time of their arrest from a dhaba at Ghanour, Panipat, the police had found 1-kg ICE.
The convicts had also stored 2.5 kg of pseudoephedrine and ICE in Honda Accord, which found parked at a public place in Amritsar.
3
4