Cocaine haul wake-up call for Punjab Police

Tribune News Service

Jupinderjit Singh

Chandigarh, October 11

The recovery of 30 kg cocaine from two Punjab smugglers in Jammu recently, and subsequent seizure of Rs 4.94 crore drug money from the third smuggler in Ludhiana today has rung alarm bells in the security establishment.

Unprecedented recovery

The cocaine recovery from Punjab smugglers in such a huge quantity is unprecedented. A senior police official

The development is unprecedented as till now there were only a few cases of cocaine smuggling in Punjab, which is facing the problem of consumption and smuggling of heroin. Cocaine was never recovered in such a large quantity in the state or from any smuggler from Punjab ever. From January 1, 2017, to August 2023, different agencies have recovered only 7.1 kg cocaine in total in Punjab.

Rs 4.94 crore seized

• Cocaine seized from 2 Punjab smugglers in Jammu
• Rs 4.94 crore drug money confiscated from the third smuggler in Ludhiana
• Punjab is a transit route as cocaine is being smuggled to metropolitian cities

The third smuggler, Manjit Singh (24), was arrested from Dashmesh Nagar, Mullanpur Dakha, in an operation led by the Punjab Counter-Intelligence Unit today. Apart from seizing the drug money, police teams have recovered one .32 bore revolver, 38 fake vehicle number plates of Punjab and Haryana, 44 gm gold, 385 gm silver, a currency counting machine, a weighing machine and a Mahindra Scorpio car from him. The accused used to pose as president of the “Punjab Police Parviar Welfare Association”. He had pasted stickers of the association on the car. Wednesday’s operation came after the arrest of two Punjab-based drug smugglers — Hunny Basra of Phagwara and Sarabjit Singh of Kartarpur — with 30 kg cocaine in Jammu on October 1. Apart from the drug seizure, the police are worried about the disclosures made by Manjit, who claimed that he had smuggled three consignments of cocaine in the past six months.

Manjit was just one of the several players in the racket. His job was only to drive a vehicle, carrying cocaine, from Jammu to Jalandhar. From there, other smugglers took the vehicle to some other destination.

“The cocaine recovery from Punjab smugglers in such a huge quantity is unprecedented,” said a senior police official. Sources said the interrogation of the accused so far suggested that the state was a transit route of the drug as the market of cocaine is in big cities like Mumbai, New Delhi, Bengaluru and others. The police are trying to find out if there were consumers in Punjab or in Chandigarh also.

Police officials said some of the 38 recovered number plates seemed similar to the high security number plates.

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