Delhi police humiliated after arrested drug baron gives ‘dozing guards’ the slip

INDIA

INDIAN police are red-faced after word leaked out that an alleged drug kingpin suspected of running a $40 million heroin and methamphetamine network walked away from the police unit guarding him and the escape was kept from the public for days.

Ranjit Singh, who uses the alias Raja Kandola, was reportedly being transported back to Delhi’s Tihar Jail by train on Monday after a court hearing in northern Punjab state when he flew the coop about 11.30pm.

Police officials were not available for comment, and versions differ on exactly what happened. Some media reports say Singh was escorted by four officers aboard the Jammu Mail express train, others by six. Most agree that the train made a stop at Ludhiana, about 250km north of New Delhi.

Mukesh Gautam, a crime reporter with the Dainik Bhaskar daily newspaper, says sources told him five of the officers were asleep when the train stopped and Singh asked the sixth to buy him some tea. When the officer returned, Singh was gone. Another version has Singh offering spiked drinks to the policemen and slipping away, although it’s unclear why Singh would be entertaining the police.

Gautam

says

even

those

ver- sions may be questionable. A few years ago in a similar case, he said, police initially reported that a prisoner escaped from a rail carriage only to eventually admit that he had slipped away earlier from the hotel where they were all staying. ‘‘Maybe it’s the same situation,’’ he said.

Other pieces

did

not quite

fit together, Gautam added, including why the Delhi police transporting Singh did not report his flight to the railway police, who had jurisdiction over crimes within the system, and remained on the train another five or six hours to Delhi without trying to apprehend him.

Police acknowledged the escape only on Wednesday.