Punjab Police recover 20kg heroin from truck
The contraband was being smuggled from Jammu and Kashmir; two Jalandhar residents arrested in Kapurthala
JALANDHAR : Busting a drug syndicate suspected of being operated by gangsters in jails, Punjab Police have recovered 20kg of heroin being smuggled from Kashmir with the arrest of two smugglers in Kapurthala on Monday.
The two, Balwinder Singh of Sarangwal village in Hoshiarpur and Peter Masih of Basti Danishmanda locality in Jalandhar, were caught when a police team intercepted a truck and a Hyundai i20 car at the Dhilwan naka (checkpoint) in Kapurthala on Monday. The search of the vehicles led to the recovery.
Masih already faces two criminal cases.
In a press statement, Punjab director general of police (DGP) Dinkar Gupta said that the narco-gangster angle was being probed as Masih had been sent to collect the consignment by Gagandeep, the brother of gangster Rajnish Kumar, alias Preet Phagwara.
When the drivers of the truck and car vehicles were signalled to stop at the checkpoint, they tried to flee but were caught after a brief chase.
The police recovered 20 heroin packets of 1-kg each after their body check and from the two vehicles.
Contraband hidden in truck driver’s cabin roof
Kapurthala senior superintendent of police Harkamalpreet Singh Khakh said that two special cavities had been created in the roof of the truck driver’s cabin to conceal the contraband.
The drug dealers said the consignment was being smuggled from Purmara Mandi in Srinagar by Balwinder Singh in the truck (HR-55K-2510) and Masih collected it from him.
The two are being questioned to zero in on their links in the drug network.