Ex-IPS officer Saji Mohan gets 15-yr jail for smuggling drugs

Mumbai, August 19

The special Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) court today sentenced former IPS officer Saji Mohan to 15 years in jail for drug peddling. His then driver, constable Rajesh Kumar Kataria of the Haryana Police, a co-accused, was awarded 10 years’ imprisonment.

Mohan, a former Zonal Director with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Chandigarh, and Joint Director, Enforcement Directorate (ED), and Kataria were arrested here in January 2009 on charges of possessing  heroin which they planned to sell to Mumbai-based Bollywood personalities, as per the charge-sheet filed against them.

The case came to light after the city police apprehended Vivek Oberoi and Kataria in Mumbai’s suburb Oshiwara and seized the consignment. According to the prosecution, Mohan had asked Kataria to carry the heroin to Oberoi, who was to sell it to his contacts in Bollywood. Oberoi, who turned approver, was acquitted by the court. 

The interrogation of Kataria and Oberoi led the police to Saji Mohan, who was then with the NCB. The prosecution argued that Mohan would sell drugs seized by the NCP to peddlers. Special Public Prosecutor Avdhut Chimalkar told the court Mohan had been sentenced to imprisonment in a case filed in Chandigarh. — TNS

He Peddled seized contraband

• Prosecution examined 40 witnesses and relied on four phone calls between Mohan and drug cartel members
• Maharashtra’s Anti-Terrorism Squad said it recovered 12 kg of heroin from Mohan, ‘smuggled’ from across the border via J&K
• Mohan would allegedly steal over 50% of contraband seized by NCB and sell it to peddlers in various cities