Long arm of drug supply: Police look for mole, find it’s the deputy jailer

Gurgaon: A Haryana Police deputy jail superintendent was arrested on Wednesday for allegedly running a drugs and SIM card supply racket at Bhondsi jail, one of the largest prisons in the state where he was posted as deputy jailer. Dharambir Chautala (45) had been strangely brought back to Bhondsi jail in 2018 after leaving under a cloud in 2017; he was transferred to Panchkula after a large number of mobile phones were seized from within the prison premises.
Police said Chautala was caught red-handed receiving a packet of drugs and SIM cards from a peddler in his quarters on the jail premises on Wednesday. The deputy jailer allegedly had in his possession 250 grams of charas and 11 4G SIM cards. The jail, which houses 815 convicts among its 2,224 inmates, has been notoriously pliant and cops have been arrested on earlier occasions for helping supply mobiles, SIMs and even drugs. This is the first time, though, that an officer at the level of deputy jailer has been found to be involved.
Ravi alias Goldy, the one allegedly supplying the drugs to Chautala, was also arrested and charged under provisions of the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.
Sources said Chautala made a killing supplying drugs and SIM cards to the inmates at very high rates. For instance, a 4G SIM card would be sold for Rs 20,000 while a gram of charas would cost an inmate Rs 4,000. Since normal phone calls are easy to track, inmates use 4G SIMs to make calls via WhatsApp also download various apps from the internet.
There have often been allegations that a number of gangsters and criminals lodged inside Bhondsi jail use mobile phones to issue extortion threats to businessmen and run their gangs from inside the prison. Jammers installed inside the jail are hardly of any use. These old devices have the capacity to block calls only from 2G SIMs. Although police have registered several cases related to threat calls from gangsters lodged in jail, the practice has continued unhindered. Kaushal, one of Gurgaon’s most wanted gangsters, had told investigators after his arrest last year that a number of his gang members lodged in Bhondsi jail were in contact with him through WhatsApp calls. Even plans for murders were conceived inside the jail, he had admitted.
Gurgaon police commissioner KK Rao said on Thursday that officers in the jail had been under scrutiny. “We had been keeping watch. A deputy jail superintendent was arrested along with a drug peddler. They were caught with 250 grams of charas and 11 SIM cards,” Rao said.
ACP (crime) Preet Pal Sangwan said the police had received a tipoff about a recent supply of drugs and SIM cards inside the jail and were working on the information for the past two weeks. “We had information that drugs would be supplied in the jail on Wednesday night. We followed our lead and arrested the jail officer from inside his quarters along with the drug peddler,” he said.
Chautala stays in the jail quarters with his family. Officers said they were trying to find out if more cops were involved in the racket. “We are trying to find out the source of the drugs and if other people are involved in supplying them,” the ACP said. Ravi, the peddler, is from Lucknow and stays in a rented house in Wazirabad.
In December last year, jail warden Phool Mohammad was booked under the NDPS Act at Bhondsi police station along with two others. Phool had come out of the jail on his bike and met Mohit (21) and Bablu (26) in Bhondsi to receive a packet of drugs when he was caught. Police then believed that Phool was not alone and was acting on behalf of some senior officers. “We had been suspecting the involvement of more jail officials. Without them, drugs and phones can’t reach the criminals in prison,” Rao said.
Jail superintendent Harvinder Singh, who joined just two weeks ago, said he was too new to comment on the alleged nexus between cops and criminals in supplying drugs inside Bhondsi jail. Chautala was posted in Bhondsi jail from 2015 to 2017 before being transferred. “Chautala was also suspended in the past in some case. We are trying to find out what that case was suspended,” ACP Sangwan said.