NIA charge sheets another trafficker in Hizbul narco-terror case

Tribune News Service
New Delhi, July 30

The anti-terror federal probe agency NIA said on Friday it filed a supplementary charge sheet against another drug trafficker Manpreet Singh of Punjab before a Special Court in Mohali under various sections of the IPC and NDPS Act.

A senior NIA official said: “Investigation has revealed that charge-sheeted accused Manpreet Singh alias Mann is a narco-trafficker and he was in close contact with other co-conspirators of the case for the supply of weapons and channelising proceeds of the sale of narcotics”.

The official said the charge sheet alleged that during searches 130 live rounds of 9 mm calibre of Pakistani origin were recovered from his possession.

According to the officials in the NIA the case was originally registered by Punjab Police in Amritsar in connection with the arrest of Hilal Ahmad Shergojri and seizure of a truck and recovery of Rs. 29 lakh from his possession on April 25, 2020.

Shergojri was an overground worker and a close associate of Riyaz Ahmad Naikoo, the then commander of Hizb-ul-Mujahideen (HM) in Kashmir, who had come to Amritsar to collect funds that were proceeds of narcotics sale, for furthering terrorist activities in J&K, they said.

Later NIA re-registered the case on May 8, 2020, and took over the probe, in which so far the agency has already filed a charge sheet against 11 accused persons in the case.