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| RS Pura border crosser, his relative, Pak associate held in Delhi with heroin | | International drug smuggling racket | | BHARAT BHUSHAN
EARLY TIMES REPORT
JAMMU, Aug 30: In an international drug smuggling ring spanning Afghanistan, Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, two RS Pura youth, including a murder accused, and a Pak national were held in New Delhi Sunday evening along with five kilograms of heroin worth Rs 25 cr in the international market.
While the Pakistani was identified as Mohammad Ramzan (43) of Lahore, the others were identified as Jyoti Sharma (45), son of Dineshwar Sharma of Mokhia in R S Pura, and his brother-in-law Naresh Kumar (26).
"With their arrest, we have unearthed an international drug racket," Delhi police special cell DCP Shibesh Singh told The Early Times over phone.
He said Jyoti was also wanted in a murder case by police in Jammu.
Sources in RS Pura police said Jyoti was allegedly involved in the murder of one Babli at RS Pura on July 8, 2009. He went underground after the commission of the crime and was evading arrest since then, the sources added.
Jyoti was alleged to be a known border crosser of RS Pura and had been booked under the cross border activities several times, sources said.
IGP Ashok Gupta said Jyoti had left the state after his alleged involvement in the murder case.
DCP Shibesh said the accused were going in an Indica taxi (JK02AN/0465) when the sleuths of Delhi police special cell intercepted them near Humayun Tomb in south Delhi's Nizamuddin area and caught hold of them. The cab and the contraband were also seized, he added.
The DCP said while three kilograms of the heroin was of fine quality, two kilograms had traces of cocaine. Their sustained interrogation was on, he informed.
He said Ramzan infiltrated into India from a border village of Punjab along with the consignment few days back.
Asked if he was received by Jyoti and Naresh in Punjab, or Delhi, he said it would not be proper to divulge these details at this juncture as it could hamper their investigation process.
The DCP said it was being ascertained if Naresh was the cab owner, or it belonged to someone else in Jammu.
He said the accused were today produced in a Delhi court and remanded to police custody for three days.
He said the trail of heroin started from Afghanistan and it was brought to India via Punjab for its further distribution in the international market.
The DCP said the consignment was to be handed over to his contact in Delhi by Jyoti.
Sources said the contrabands originating from Afghanistan and Pakistan were being smuggled into India through the borders of J&K and Punjab.
It was suspected that major part of the proceeds, which the accused were to get from the sale of the contraband, was to be utilised for funding militancy in Jammu and Kashmir.
A packet of 900 gms of heroin was seized in the first week of January this year from a militant hideout in Gandoh forests of Doda.
It too had markings of Afghanistan and Pakistan on it.
And, the heroin packets allegedly seized from the J&K cadre IPS officer Saji Mohan by the country's anti-terrorist squad (ATS) in Mumbai in January last year too bore similar markings.
Not only this, the 900 gms brown sugar packet allegedly seized from four persons, including Rehbar-e-Taleem (ReT) teacher Sanjay Kumar and R&B department employee Rakesh, at Kishtwar on January 13 this year too had similar markings.
So the police suspicion that the drug smuggling spans Afghanistan, Pakistan and Jammu and Kashmir, holds water.
All the seizures have common markings and all are linked to J&K. Now the issue is if the Pak ISI was trying to give rise to narco-terrorism in the state?
This question continues to haunt the security agencies here. The 12 kg heroin allegedly seized from Mohan and another 25 kg recovered at his instance from a flat in suburban Mumbai had also originated from Afghanistan and brought to India from Pakistan via Jammu and Kashmir borders, most probably by the infiltrating groups of militants, or the border crossers.
What is even more worrisome is that the drug smuggling network could be overlapping with a wider gang active in smuggling weapons and hawala money into the country.
Quoting intelligence inputs and interrogation reports of some arrested militants, sources said the money received by selling heroin was being used to sustain militancy in the state.
"Narco-terrorism seems to be taking its roots in the state," sources said and added if it was true, it could bring a dangerous turn in the two decade long militant history of the state.
A consignment of 15 kilograms of heroin worth Rs 75 cr was smuggled into the border Khour area of Akhnoor by a Pakistani and handed over to two Khour residents four months, or so back. While the Pakistani had fled across the border, the Khour residents were arrested by police.
Sources said it seemed as if the state was emerging as a safe transit point and a smuggling route for drug peddlers.
Despite the foiling of several smuggling attempts by agencies, many narcotic smugglers were said to have crossed the state from Lakhanpur by concealing contrabands in their luxury cars, the sources added.
In January last, anti-narcotics cell (ANC) of Mumbai police had arrested Abdul Rehman alias Haji Ali Mohammad Hakim, a Kashmiri youth, allegedly with a huge quantity of narcotics which he was carrying in his Honda City car. He was alleged to have transported the consignment in his car from Kashmir to Mumbai. |
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