Drug smuggling case link: Court allows NIA’s plea for custody of mobile phone, laptop of two Punjab Police officials
Ramkrishan Upadhyay
Chandigarh, April 21
A local court has allowed a plea of the National Investigating Agency (NIA) seeking permission to handover the mobile phone and laptop of two Punjab Police officials to investigate their alleged link in the drug smuggling case.
The UT police seized the articles during the investigation of an alleged forgery case of issuing fake promotion and recruitment orders of Punjab Police personnel under the name of former Punjab Director General of Police (DGP) Siddharth Chattopadhyaya. The UT police have already filed a chargesheet in the case against several Punjab policemen, including Sandeep Kumar, Mani Katoch, Bahadur Singh, Inspector Satwant Singh, Sarbjit Singh and Kulvinder Singh Hundal.
The trial of the case is going on in the court of Additional Sessions Judge, Chandigarh. The UT police registered a case on the complaint of a Deputy Superintendent of Police, Punjab Police, on January 12, 2022 who alleged that several fake promotion and recruitment orders of policemen were issued on the signature of former Punjab DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya.
Names of several constables, sub-inspectors and assistant sub-inspectors were mentioned in the alleged promotion orders. An alleged audio conversation between ex-DGP and a dismissed Punjab policeman also went viral days after the registration of the case in the alleged forgery matter.
In the audio clip, several references were allegedly made to the issues related to drugs and national security. The audio clip was allegedly found in phone of one of the accused, who was allegedly involved in the conspiracy to issue fake promotion orders on the name of ex-DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya.
A team from the NIA had also questioned two accused inside the jail last year in this regard. Earlier, the police registered an FIR pertaining to the leaked audio case under the Unlawful Activities Prevention Act. Later, it was sent to the NIA for investigation. The NIA started the investigation after registering the case under various sections of the NDPS and the UA(P) Act.
