Cops search Central Jail; narcotics, 4 mobile phones recovered

Hoshiarpur, January 23

A special search operation was conducted in Hoshiarpur Central Jail by the district police under SSP J Elanchezhian today. This is part of a special drive to restrict the use of mobile phones and drug trafficking in the prisons. During the search operations, four mobile phones, small quantities of opium and charas and intoxicant tablets were recovered. Elanchezhian, addressing a press conference here today, said the search operation was started at around 6:30 am today.

The checking of the prison was aimed at destroying the criminals’ networks and preventing the use of mobiles in the jail and to stop drug trafficking in the jail. The SSP said after the recovery of the mobiles and narcotics, it would now be probed if there were any jail employees in collusion with the prisoners involved in this and any such nexus would be unearthed.

As soon as the jail authorities reached the prison, the police personnel closely searched each barrack of the jail. During this, the police managed to recover four mobile phones without SIM cards hidden in different places. Apart from this, a murder accused, Paramjit Singh, alias Pammawas, was found to have hidden 25 narcotics tablets, 2.960 gm of charas and 0.760 gm of opium.

A case was registered against unknown persons regarding the recovered mobile phones, while another under the NDPS Act was registered in the city police station against Pamma.

He said the police would investigate how drugs and mobile phones reached the jail and if any police or jail personnel was found involved in these activities, he would be dealt with strictly. During the search operations, SP Balbir Singh, DSP Sukhwinder Singh, DSP Rajinder Kumar, DSP Gurjeetpal Singh, DSP Raj Kumar and DSP Jang Bahadur Sharma, besides 300 police personnel were involved in search operation. During the press conference, ASP Dr Ankur Gupta (IPS, under-training) and DSP (City) Sukhwinder Singh were also present with the SSP. — OC