Drug smuggler with Pak link held

Tribune News Service

Mohali, August 29

In a major breakthrough, the Mohali CIA has arrested a notorious drug smuggler, Balraj Singh (29), hailing from Naushahra Dhalla, Tarn Taran, with half a kg of heroin. He allegedly has links with drug lords in Pakistan. 

He is believed to have smuggled at least 60 kg contraband, worth several crores of rupees in the international market, from Pakistan. The police have not ruled out terror links of the smuggler and arms smuggling by him. “He is being interrogated; we will unearth all his wrongdoings,” SSP Gurpreet Singh Bhullar told a press conference here today.

“The smuggler, Balraj Singh (29), from Naushahra Dhalla, Tarn Taran, was arrested in the Kurali area where he had come to supply a consignment to a customer,” said the SSP. Balraj was living on a fake identity of Mandeep Singh at Ropar with Sukhwinder Kaur, with whom he had a live-in relationship. He had bought a house, worth Rs 25 lakh, at Ropar for her last year.

Terming the smuggler a hardcore criminal, the SSP said Balraj Singh was a proclaimed offender in at least two drug cases registered against him at Jalalabad and Thana Serai Amanat Khan. He had also been lodged in Amritsar and Kapurthala jails in connection with drug cases. He was facing several other criminal cases as well,” said the SSP. 

According to the police, Balraj Singh, a Class XII passout, got into drug smuggling in 2011 when he, along with his accomplice, Chamkaur Singh, a resident of Bhoose village in Tarn Taran district, smuggled 5 kg of heroin from Pakistan. “They then smuggled 12 kg of heroin from Pakistan, but were nabbed by the Amritsar police and lodged in a jail”, said Bhullar. 

Balraj Singh came out of the jail on bail in 2015 and again started his nefarious activities. He, along with two other accomplices, Ranvir Singh, alias Bhola, and Bau, both from Dauke, smuggled 40 kg of heroin from the Paksitan border near Jalalabad with the help of a BSF official. The Jalalabad police had nabbed Bhola, Bau and the BSF official while Balraj managed to flee from the clutches of the police,” said the SSP. 

“We are also investigating whether he has any terrorist link or is involved in arms smuggling,” said the SSP.

After registering a case under Sections 21, 61 and 85 of the NDPS Act at the Kurali police station, the police produced Balraj Singh before the Ropar court, which remanded him in three-day  police custody.