‘Fake heroin’ racket: 3 of family arrested

TARN TARAN : Tarn Taran police have busted a gang involved in smuggling prescription medicines, which are also used as drugs, with the arrest of three members of a family from their home in Harike Pattan, 30-km from district headquarters, on Wednesday. These medicines, including Tramadol, Alprazolam pills etc, are mixed indiscriminately to manufacture ‘fake heroin’, a white powdery substance similar to heroin. The idea is to trick drug addicts. This substance (fake heroin) kills immediately, the police claim. Those held are a chemist shop owner, Balkar Singh, his son, Jagdeep Singh, and Jagdeep’s wife, Preetpal Kaur.

“On a tip-off, Harike SHO Prabjit Singh arrested the accused from their home. The team recovered 5,430 prescription medicines, 600 injections and 59 vials (without label) from them,” SSP Darshan Singh Mann told HT.

The SSP termed the recent deaths of young men in Tarn Taran as being linked to the injection of fake heroin. “When addicts inject fake heroin, it causes immediate death,” he added. The arrested accused were wholesalers and peddlers from Tarn Taran and its adjoining districts were their customers, the police have said.

“With heroin supply reduced in Punjab, peddlers use these prescription drugs to make powder. They also use liquid medicinal injections to convert the powder into ‘fake heroin’,” he said, adding that the accused were being questioned to know the source.

The peddlers who purchased the fake heroin from the accused trio are also being traced.