23YROLD DIES OF ‘OVERDOSE’, 3 MEN BOOKED

growing outrage over the issue of illicit drugs across the state, a 23-year-old labourer, Lavpreet Khan, was found dead after suspected overdose in Talwandi Sabo, 30km from here, on Sunday evening. On a complaint by his father, Jeevan Khan, police registered a case under section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) against three unidentified men, who had allegedly taken Lavpreet along hours before he was found dead, with froth in his mouth, in the fields along a road.

DSP Barinder Singh said the father said three unknown persons came at his house at 9.30 am on Sunday in a car and took along Lavpreet, who is survived by his wife and a four-month-old daughter. “He was hooked to drugs,” said the DSP, adding that the cause of death will be known after viscera report. After postmortem, the cremation was done.

3 OTHER ‘DRUG DEATHS’

Meanwhile, in Ferozepur, electrician Basant Singh, 28, and mechanic Shivam, 22, were found dead. Claims of these deaths being due to drug overdose were made by their families.

In Ludhiana, a 30-year-old man was found dead in the fields in Rampur Pattu Chandu village of Doraha. It was reported that the victim, Satnam Singh, was a drug addict and mentally disturbed as he lived alone after divorce. The villagers kept the body in the mortuary and are now waiting for his elder sister, who is settled in Canada, to arrive.