In Samrala, 42 rescued from illegal de-addiction centre

Ludhiana: The Khanna police on Tuesday claimed to have rescued 42 persons, including an executive engineer, a dentist and a teacher, from a de-addiction centre being run illegally in Samrala.
Police have arrested Pritpal Singh of Kamal Colony in Samrala and Bhag Singh of Gobindgarh in Fatehgarh Sahib, who ran the centre. The case comes less than 10 days after police rescued 13 persons from a de-addiction centre in Machhiwara.
Khanna SSP Gursharandeep Singh Grewal said a police party raided the illegal rehabilitation centre — Bhai Daya Singh Gurmat Vidyalaya and Simran Abhayas Kendar — at Rupalon village on Monday evening. It had shifted at a new building in the village from Lopon village in Samrala just 20 days ago.
Police officials said during the raid, they arrested Pritpal and Bhag Singh, who along with their associates ran the centre, and rescued 42 inmates. The accused, who are in their thirties, had no licence or permit or certificate from the government to run the centre.
They have been booked under sections 420 (cheating), 417 (punishment for cheating), 342 (wrongful confinement), 344 (wrongful confinement for ten or more days), 345 (wrongful confinement of person for whose liberation writ has been issued), 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 120-B (criminal conspiracy) of the IPC at Samrala police station.
Forty-two inmates from across the state were kept as hostages. They were handed over to their families in the presence of Ranjit Singh Samrala, executive magistrate, and Dr Ajit Singh, SMO, community health centre, Manupur, Samrala.
Samrala DSP Davinder Singh said, “The accused would charge huge fees for their services. Pretending as specialists, they would even beat up the inmates. Besides the two arrested accused, there were more who were being identified.”
Police said the rescued included a dentist, a retired executive engineer and a junior engineer. “Some were admitted by their families for drinking alcohol occasionally. A few were brought here by their kin as the latter wanted to grab their properties. Some of the inmates were in the centre only because of their belligerent nature,” a cop added.
A police officer said there were neither any medical facilities available at the centre nor there was a doctor. “Even as Pritpal claimed to have done a course in pharmacy, he couldn’t produce the certificates. Bhag Singh is not even a matriculate,” he added.
They were locked in
Police officials said the accused would lock the inmates and wouldn’t allow them to call their family members to complain against torture. They added that the accused, on the insistence of family members of inmates, would pick them up and charge Rs 18,000 the first time and then Rs 10,000 to Rs 12,000 per month for “de-addiction” facilities.
One inmate worked in Oz
Cops said the rescued included a man who had been working in Australia for the past few years. He had got depressed after his father’s death and was admitted in the rehabilitation centre by his family.
Another case
On June 24, Machhiwara police had rescued 13 addicts from an illegal de-addiction centre. Following the raid, the police had arrested the centre manager, Napinder Singh of Raipur Gujran village in Fatehgarh Sahib.