Amritsar: Police demolish drug peddler’s house in Rangarh village near IB

Cracking down on drug traffickers, the police on Sunday demolished the residence of a drug peddler, identified as Janak Singh, at Rangarh village, located near the India-Pakistan border here.

Janak Singh has three cases of drug peddling against him while his son Nishan Singh and his three brothers are also allegedly involved in cross-border trafficking of narcotics, said SSP (Rural) Maninder Singh. They also have about three cases against them registered under the NDPS Act.

He said Janak Singh and one of his brothers was out on bail while another brother was still in jail. According to police, the house was constructed allegedly with the money earned from smuggling of narcotics and was built after encroaching on panchayat land.

Maninder Singh said that Janak Singh used to work as a labourer but later entered into illegal drug trade. He was first booked in an NDPS Act case in 2022. He had constructed a palatial house on government land.

“The District Development and Panchayat Officer (DDPO) had informed the police about the illegal construction by Janak Singh after encroaching upon government land in the village and sought police help for removing it. We reached the village and demolished the house constructed here,” said SSP (Rural) Maninder Singh.

He said till now, the Amritsar rural police had demolished illegal properties of as many as six drug smugglers since the launch of state-wide crackdown on peddlers under the “Yudh Nashiyan Virudh” campaign. He said more such operations would be carried out in future after following due legal procedure.

The SSP said that since March 1, the Amritsar rural police have confiscated as many as 150 kg of heroin and drug money to the tune of Rs 2 crore. Apart from this, the police have also frozen the properties of drug smugglers with a total market value of Rs 4 crore.