Woman among four held with opium, heroin

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, November 26

The Jalandhar rural police have caught four persons and recovered 5 kg of opium and 510 gm of heroin from them in three incidents.

While in the first case, the police nabbed a man with 5 kg of opium. In the second case, a woman was nabbed with 255 gm of heroin and in the third case, two men were nabbed with 255 gm of heroin. This was stated by SSP (rural) Navjot Singh Mahal during a press conference here today.

In the first case, an FIR was lodged against Sukhdev Singh (45) on Sunday under Sections 18 of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS) Act at the Lohian police station after he was apprehended with the opium.

During a naka laid at Phull Kudowal village, a truck, driven by Sukhdev, coming from Fukiwal village, was signalled to stop and on inspection, the police recovered two packets of opium from the cabin of the truck, weighing 3 kg and 2 kg, respectively.

During investigation, Sukhdev, who is a resident of Mandala, Lohian, said he had two sons and one of his sons studied up to Class V and the other was in Class VIII.

He said he drove a truck for a living for the past 20 years and for the past number of months, he had been driving a truck (bearing registration No. PB-03-T-9611) of Balwinder Singh, a resident of Killi, Sultanpur Lodhi in Kapurthala.

He said he also used to smuggle poppy husk and opium and the consignment of opium which had been recovered from the cabin of his truck was of Harbhinder Singh, alias Bhinda, which he got from the Bihar/Jharkhand border from an unknown person.

In the second incident, a police party, during a naka on Sultanpur Lodhi Road, near Nirankari Bhawan, Lohian, apprehended a woman, Balwinder Kaur (40), a resident of Shanker Patti Takar.

On search, 255 gm of heroin was recovered from her, which she was carrying in a black plastic bag. An FIR was lodged on November 25 at the Lohian police station under Section 21 of the NDPS Act. Mahal said Balwinder Kaur had a criminal background and earlier too, four cases stand registered against her at various police stations.

She revealed that she and her husband, a driver by profession, used to supply heroin to people. She brought the consignment of heroin from a woman of Ghungrani village.

However, the police are probing the case.

In another case, during a naka at Panjdhera village in Phillaur, the police apprehended Lovepreet Singh alias Lovely, a resident of Rama Mandi, Jalandhar, and Prem Singh, a resident of Khurla Kingra, near Ambedkar Bhawan, and recovered 255 gm of heroin and a TATA Zest car (bearing registration No. PB-01-B-6546) from their possession. An FIR was lodged on November 23 under Sections 323/324/326 and 351 of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against Lovepreet Singh in this regard at Rama Mandi police station here.

He said he used to bring heroin from Delhi and sell the same in Jalandhar.