Intel lapse? Cops at 2 police stns face probe

NOIDA: Police commissioner Laxmi Singh launched a departmental inquiry against the personnel — SHOs, local intelligence unit official and constables — deputed at Surajpur and Beta-2 police stations between 2021 and 2022, for intelligence failure and negligence.
The two police stations have jurisdiction over the areas where the two meth labs, busted over the last two weeks, were operating.
On Tuesday, police tracked down a methamphetamine-manufacturing lab from a house in Mitra Enclave under the jurisdiction of Beta-2 police and seized 30 kg of drugs. The unit was operating just 8 km from another meth lab in Theta-2, from which 46kg of MDMA, estimated to be worth Rs 200 crore, was seized on May 17.
“These units have been operating in Greater Noida for more than two years. The departmental inquiry, headed by Noida additional DCP Shakti Avasthy, will probe if there is an intelligence failure or negligence,” Singh said. If found guilty of negligence, the cops will face a vigilance inquiry, the CP added.
The top cop said regional foreigners’ registration offices are supposed to verify the documents of foreigners residing in the respective areas and ensure they are not involved in any criminal activities. “FRO staff, too, will face a departmental inquiry. Police will also begin a 10-day verification drive of foreigners living in Noida and Greater Noida.,” Singh said.
The inquiry will focus on officers deputed at the respective stations between 2021 and 2022, the CP said, as the two houses where the meth labs were operating, were rented out during the corresponding period.
“As per the rental agreements, the laboratory found on May 17 was rented on January 1, 2022, while the house in Mitra Enclave was rented on August 1, 2021,” Singh said.
Meanwhile, the chairman of Mitra Enclave Residents’ Welfare Association, Devender Nagar, blamed the house owner for being lax about the police verification. “Since 2019, several people had objected to renting premises to foreigners after some of them clashed with the security guards and created a ruckus. Residents suspected the foreigners were involved in illegal activity but Omkar Nath, the owner of the house where the meth lab was operating, did not take the complaints seriously. He kept saying that the men were students at a private university in Greater Noida,” Nagar said. The sector has 217 houses.
He claimed the foreignerspaid four to five times more rent and so Nath never checked on them. “We had served him notices for defaulting on maintenance and water bills since 1996, Nath did not respond,” Nagar claimed.