DW BUREAU / Chandigarh

Dealing a major blow to an international drug smuggling and hawala cartel, Punjab Police have busted a cartel linked to Turkey-based smuggler Navpreet Singh with the arrest of his three operatives, said Director General of Police (DGP) Gaurav Yadav here on Monday.

Those arrested have been identified as Gurdeep Singh (35), a taxi driver from Amritsar, Pardeep Sharma (29), a garment shop worker from Bikaner in Rajasthan, and Mani Sharma (36), a Ludhiana-based garment businessman. Police teams have recovered 1.10 kg of heroin, Rs 1.06 crore of hawala money (Rs 84.02 lakh in cash and Rs 22 lakh frozen in bank accounts), one cash counting machine, besides impounding their car (without a number plate).

DGP Yadav said preliminary investigation has revealed that the accused Gurdeep was operating the local network of hawala and drugs smuggling on the directions of his handler Nav Bhullar, who had provided him a house to use as a hideout in Amritsar and all logistic support to run the cartel. Accused Bhullar is wanted in big hauls of drug and hawala cases by state agencies, he said.

The DGP said further investigation is underway to trace backward and forward linkages of the cartel.

Sharing operation details, Commissioner of Police (Amritsar) Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said that acting on a specific intelligence input, a police team strategically formed teams and apprehended Gurdeep Singh from near Lok Heart School in Ram Tirath Road in Amritsar and recovered the drug consignment and drug money from his possession. The operation was conducted under the supervision of DCP (Detective) Ravinderpal Singh, ADCP (Detective) Jagbinder Singh and ACP (Detective) Harminder

Singh Sandhu.

The Police Commissioner said during interrogation, accused Gurdeep Singh talked about the involvement of accused -- Pardeep Sharma and Mani Sharma -- and also revealed that the latter had delivered Rs 5 lakh each in drug money. Following revelations, police teams tracked both the accused and arrested them, he said, adding that further investigations are on.

(editor@dailyworld.in)