Two running drug racket on luxury cars arrested

PATIALA: Patiala Police claim to have busted a racket involving a fleet of high-end cars with the arrest of their owner, a rich landlord from Haryana, and his girlfriend on Thursday. The cops have already busted drug rackets operated with use of mini trucks and other worn out vehicles.

Police have arrested one Jaswinder Singh, a resident of Fatehabad in Haryana, and his girlfriend while they were trying to peddle 3.4 kg of opium in two high-end cars.

SSP Mandeep Singh Sidhu said the arrests were made on Wednesday by Samana crime investigating agency from grain market Balladera. A preliminary interrogation of Jaswinder alias Sarpanch, who is a resident of Palsar village in Fatehabad district, and his accomplice Amarjit Kaur, who is a resident as Muradapura tehsil of Samana subdivision in Patiala district, revealed that they have been into drug trafficking since long. Jaswinder has even spent eight years in jail for a drug-related crime, he said.

The SSP revealed that while 3kg opium was seized from a Pajero that the two were driving, 44 grams of narcotics was seized from an Audi parked at the residense of Amarjit. A case under various sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act has been registered at Samana and the two luxury cars confiscated. The cops also found a weighing scale and plastic bags in the cars.

A rich landlord, Jaswinder owns over 70 acres of land at his native village and was convicted in another case of smuggling poppy husk registered against him in 2006 at Bhiwani, the SSP said. He remained in jail till 2014. Amarjit has around 20 cases registered against her in various districts of Punjab and Haryana.

The accused would buy the opium from Jharkhand and transport it to Haryana using regular transport trucks and then sell it in the Malwa region of Punjab.