Ludhiana druglord Akshay Kumar Chhabra rose from tea seller's son to 'crorepati' in 2 years

Tribune News Service

Nikhil Bhardwaj

Ludhiana, January 10

From a tea vendor’s son to a crorepati in a span of two years, the kingpin of an international heroin syndicate, Akshay Kumar Chhabra of Ludhiana, has turned out to be a big catch for the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

• Editorial: Drug scourge

Chhabra, who also worked for some time at a chemist shop, later became the owner of several commercial properties, the value of which is said to be in crores.

Before becoming rich, he, along with his family, used to live in a small house in Janta Nagar, Shimlapuri. After starting the business of heroin smuggling and manufacturing, he bought a palatial house at Nitesh Vihar.

Along with the house, he also bought plots. He constructed a big farmhouse on one of these to spend his leisure time.

With the drug money, Chhabra reportedly also bought several luxury vehicles and used to flaunt these in his neighbourhood.

During a visit to Chhabra’s trading firms and godowns at the New Grain Market, Gill Road, it was found that he runs “Guru Kirpa Trading Firm” there from where he used to do wholesale trading of ghee, edible oils, rice and other products.

Chhabra’s neighbours were not aware that he was running an international drug syndicate that had links in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Now, this trading firm has been sealed by the NCB.

“Around two years ago, Chhabra’s father used to run a tea stall in the New Grain Market and his father was feeding his family with a meagre income. His mother and father even used to supply “chappatis” and “paranthas” to workers at FCI godowns. Within two years, Chhabra earned a fortune from illegal drug business and opened big trading firms,” said a shopkeeper in the market on condition of anonymity.

He said, “His trading firms had returns worth crores and other firms dealing in similar products suffered setbacks as Chhabra’s firm would offer cheap deals to retailers.” Interestingly, drug kingpin Chhabra was running most of his trading firms and godowns from rented buildings despite owning some commercial buildings in the same grain market, said another grain market shopkeeper.

The NCB had sealed several godowns in the New Grain Market from where heroin and other raw material required to manufacture heroin were seized. Interestingly, to make the neighbourhood believe that genuine trade was being done, members of the drug syndicate would also load bags of rice, sugar, oil and other products. A fleet of commercial vehicles was also bought by Akshay Chhabra in these two years. These have been sealed by the NCB and are parked in the grain market. Despite heroin smuggling and manufacturing going on in Ludhiana, neither the Punjab Police nor any agency succeeded in busting the network in the past two years.

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