Nigerian woman amongthree arrested with heroin

Tribune News Service

Mohali, May 27

Three persons, including a Nigerian woman, were arrested by the Special Task Force (STF), Mohali, in two separate cases for carrying a total of 790 gm of heroin, worth Rs 20 lakh, here on Saturday.

According to the police, Nigerian national Maryam Wano was caught with 280 gm of heroin, while Ludhiana residents Harmanpreet Singh and Manpreet Singh, alias Patwari, both habitual drug peddlers, were nabbed with 510 gm of heroin.

Acting on a tip-off, the police intercepted the Nigerian woman near the old barrier in Mohali. The police recovered the heroin from her purse. She was coming to Chandigarh from New Delhi, where she resides, for supplying drugs to her clients when she was stopped.

The woman, who is believed to be in her thirties, told the police that she came to India in August 2016 on a medical visa and later started working in a beauty and hair salon. She, meanwhile, started the trade of carrying the drug from New Delhi and smuggling it to Punjab and neighbouring areas. She failed to produce her visa and passport, the police said.

“She has been into drug peddling for over eight months,” said Rajinder Singh Sohal, Superintendent of Police, STF.

In another case, the police intercepted a car in which the Ludhiana duo was sitting near Bougainvillea Garden, Phase 4, here. On checking, heroin was recovered from the vehicle. They were coming from Delhi when they were caught.

Harmanpreet told the police that his father was a property dealer and did farming as well. It was during his BCA studies that he started taking drugs. He was then sent to a drug rehabilitation centre by his family. Later, he moved to Dubai and returned to India in 2017. He then again started taking and peddling drugs along with Manpreet, who already had two drug cases registered against him in Ludhiana.

Meanwhile, the three have been remanded in two-day police custody.