Mobile, drug racket busted; 8 arrested

PK Jaiswar

Amritsar, June 5

The police have busted a racket involved in the smuggling of drugs and mobile phones inside the Amritsar Central Jail with the arrest of eight persons. Those arrested included a Jasdeep Singh of Khapar Kheri village, Indian Reserve Battalion constable Mangat Singh, Jai Kush Bhatti and gangster Sajan Kalyan, alias Daddu, Avtar Singh, Gurjit Singh, Lovepreet Singh and Gurmeet Singh.

Police Commissioner Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said Jai Kush Bhatti’s brother, Abhishek Bhatti, was yet to be arrested. He was managing financial transactions and other logistics for him, he added.

Jasdeep Singh, a lab technician, has established links with prisoners and the cops deputed inside. He used to smuggle drugs by hiding inside his turban, shoes or in the private parts after taking commission of Rs 5,000 per delivery. The police had recovered 149gm opium and Rs 8,400 drug money from him. The police also seized a forged ID card with fake signatures of jail superintendent Anurag Azad posing as Punjab police cop. The police recovered two mobiles from him during his arrest.

Dr Darpan Ahluwalia, Additional Deputy Commissioner of Police (ADCP), who supervised the probe, said Amritsar jail was leading in terms of recoveries of phones in the state. “With this seizure of mobile phones, the police have snapped the network of cross-border smugglers and gangsters running their operations from jail.”

Anurag Azad, Superintendent, Amritsar Central Jail, said various steps are being taken to curb the slipping of cell phones inside the jail.