Drug racket: NCB identifies more dealers

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Tribune News Service

Ludhiana, January 22

After the arrest of Manoj Kumar, a Ludhiana-based wholesale medicine dealer from Pindi Street, along with two Agra-based dealers Mohit and Gaurav Aggarwal with a haul of psychotropic medicines by the Delhi Narcotic Control Bureau, their interrogation has led to the identification of several other dealers who have been running a trafficking network across Punjab on a large scale.

They belong to Ludhiana’s hub of medicines Pindi Street, Balachaur and Kotakpura.

The NCB is gathering technical evidence like call details to nab these dealers.

Besides, the NCB has also identified 10 pharmaceutical companies from Delhi, HP, and Uttarakhand from where these medicines were reportedly diverted to the accused for illegal trading. NCB officials are set to question people from these companies.

“Manoj has been in the wholesale medicine business since 1997. From April 2019, he started the illicit trade of psychotropic medicines. He met Gaurav Aggarwal in Panchkula, from whom he came to know about high margins in the illicit trade and started dealing in psychotropic medicines. Manoj used to procure these from Gaurav and sell these to local retailers/dealers of Pindi Street in Ludhiana, Kotkapura and Balachaur,” KPS Malhotra, Zonal Director, Delhi Zonal unit, NCB, told The Tribune on Wednesday.

“He used to sell about two or three lakh psychotropic medicines and earn Rs 2-3 lakh in a month. Manoj confessed that so far, he has sold over 10 lakh tablets and capsules. We are also scanning the bank accounts of the accused,” said Malhotra.

On January 19, the NCB had seized 7.24 lakh tablets/capsules, 1,400 injections and 80 Codeine-based cough syrup bottles worth around Rs 1.5 crore.

10 pharma companies under scanner

The NCB has also identified 10 pharmaceutical companies from Delhi, Himachal Pardesh, and Uttarakhand from where these medicines were reportedly diverted to the accused for illegal trading. NCB officials are set to question people from these companies.