AAP govt ‘shielding’ accused in drug cases, alleges ex-ED officer

Former Enforcement Directorate Deputy Director Niranjan Singh on Saturday accused the state’s AAP government of “shielding” high-profile accused in drug cases and asked why the police could not arrest its sacked AIG Rajjit Singh, who is on the run for two years now.

Niranjan Singh alleged that Rajjit “managed to get protection not just from the current state government but also from the previous Congress regime and central agencies”. He put the entire blame on giving a long rope to Rajjit on CM Bhagwant Mann and DGP Gaurav Yadav.

Rajjit Singh is wanted by the Vigilance Bureau and the Punjab Police’s Special Task Force. The Vigilance had booked him in the disproportionate assets case while the STF charged him with running a nexus with drugs smugglers. He was named as a co-accused in an FIR lodged against dismissed Inspector Inderjit Singh under a drug case. It has been alleged that he and his family had made an expenditure of Rs 13 crore in 10 years, which was above his sources of income.

“Rajjit’s involvement had come to the fore right at a time when Inspector Inderjit Singh had been arrested by the police in 2017 but then Punjab CM Amarinder Singh kept on shielding him,” Niranjan Singh alleged. “Somehow, he was arrested, suspended and dismissed from services by the AAP government. But this government too has failed to trace his whereabouts since October 2023,” he said.

‘Amarinder didn’t act too’

Hitting out at Amarinder Singh, the retired ED officer said the former CM said in a video byte two days ago that he had taken oath on Gutka Sahib to break the backbone of drug trade in Punjab and not to wipe it out completely.

“Had he even genuinely tried to break the backbone of drug trade, he would have at least taken action against Rajjit instead of presenting him awards for good policing,” he alleged.

‘Police helped bigwigs’

Niranjan also targeted the previous Congress government for not providing the ED details of the hooch tragedy that had claimed over 120 lives in 2020.

“I had personally gone to meet then SSP Mandeep Singh Sidhu in Patiala to take the case details but the required information was not shared. I had also written to then DGP but he too chose not to revert. Clearly, the police were helping the bigwigs involved in the illegal trade,” he alleged.