Cocaine haul in J&K: Involvement of two from Jalandhar, Phagwara sends cops into tizzy

Tribune News Service

Deepkamal Kaur

Jalandhar, October 3

The arrest of two men – Sarabjit Singh from Ballan village of Jalandhar and Honey Basra from Palahi village of Phagwara – by the Jammu and Kashmir police in 30-kg cocaine case on Sunday has certainly sent the local police into a tizzy, especially since both of them had no past record. The local police have been trying to cull more information about their contacts and are trying to verify how they came in contact with big drug mafia.

As per information, Honey Basra (23) was jobless. He quit the job with a local cloth dealer around 3-4 months ago. As per information available with the Phagwara police, Basra’s brother is settled in Jordan and he had reportedly also spent some time in Dubai where he came in contact with co-accused Sarabjit Singh.

Sarabjit Singh is a truck driver. His contacts in Ballan village said he was approached by Basra to send some consignment to J&K where he had made a few rounds earlier too. His acquaintances say Sarabjit got lured owing to good payment and was trapped. Yesterday, one Mohammad Shafi, whose barber shop is located right in front of Sarabjit’s house, was also detained by the J&K police over his alleged links.

Deepa, sarpanch of the village, said Sarabjit hailed from a Jatt family, while Shafi was from the only Muslim family in the village that could stay back during Partition owing to support of the locals. He said neither of the two had any criminal links in the past and their reported involvement in the big drug case had come as a major shocker. “The J&K police are still in the village interrogating people and trying to unearth any links to the big kingpin in the case,” he said.

DIG Jalandhar Range Swapan Sharma said: “Since the entire action took place in Ramban, J&K, and the police there had been tracking the case, the Punjab Police so far have little information about the drug racket”.

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