Ex-IPS officer Saji Mohan sentenced to 15-year jail for selling drugs

Shiv Kumar
Tribune News Service
Mumbai, August 19

A special Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act court on Monday sentenced former IPS officer Saji Mohan to 15 years imprisonment in a 2009 drug haul case.

Mohan’s driver, constable Rajeshkumar Kataria of the Haryana Police who was accused along with the officer, was sentenced to ten years’ imprisonment by the NDPS court.

Both Mohan and Kataria were found guilty of carrying more than 37 kg of heroin which they were planning to sell to Mumbai-based Bollywood personalities, according to the charge-sheet filed against them in the case.

A third person, Vicky Oberoi, who turned approver in the case, has been acquitted.

The case came to light after the city police apprehended Oberoi and Kataria from Mumbai’s suburb of Oshiwara and seized a consignment of heroin from them.

Following their interrogation, the police found out that Mohan had asked Kataria to carry the consignment of heroin to Oberoi who was to sell the same to his contacts in Bollywood.

Oberoi, reportedly related to film actor Kabir Bedi, was known to several movie stars.

Interrogation of Kataria and Oberoi led them to Saji Mohan who was then the zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau, Chandigarh.

Prosecutors argued that Mohan used to sell the drugs seized by the NCB to drug peddlers.

During the trial, special public prosecutor Avdhut Chimalkar argued that Mohan had been sentenced to 13 years imprisonment in a case filed in Chandigarh.

The sentence had been upheld by the High Court, the prosecutor told the special NDPS court here.