The Punjab Police have unearthed a major inter-state racket in connection with the drugs module busted three days ago, and have named three drug lords, operating from U.P, Madhya Pradesh and Kolkata, in the FIR.Interrogation of the main accused, Canadian Davinder Singh Nirwal @ Dev, who had been remanded by the court to police custody, has led the police to unravel a major network involving multiple suspects spread across various states.Punjab Police is coordinating with their counterparts in Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal to nab the suspects, identified respectively as Alfaz, Ghanshyam and Belal, a police spokesperson revealed on Wednesday, adding that a manhunt had been launched for the trio.It may be recalled that Dev, a proclaimed offender wanted by both the Enforcement Directorate (ED) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for international drugs smuggling, was arrested by a joint team of the Counter Intelligence Wing and District Police Jalandhar Rural, along with three others, for smuggling Opium and the potent date rape drug Ketamine abroad through the courier route.Initial investigations in the case have helped the police trace Dev’s drug links to Alfaz, Ganshyam and Belala, a big supplier of narcotics. Dev and Ajit had flown to Kolkata from Delhi a few months to strike a deal for 15 kg of Opium with Belal, the police have found.
Subsequently, Dev had sent his co-accused Ajit on his truck to Kolkata to bring the consignment to Punjab, to be divided between the two, according to the police spokesperson.As part of the investigations, the police have also questioned the staff at the courier agency at Sheikha Bazaar, Jalandhar, which had been initially approached by the accused for smuggling the consignment out of India. Their interrogation has revealed that Ajit had had brought the seven cauldrons (karahis), in which the drugs were concealed, to their shop for couriering to Canada on May 28, 2018. The ID proof submitted to the agency was a voter identity card in the name of `Surinder Singh’, s/o Sarwan Singh” r/o village Singriwala.The courier agency personnel have further disclosed that a few days later, Gurbax (who had given the fake ID of Surinder Singh) and Tarlochan had sought the return of the package, which was then retrieved by the agency from the Delhi branch. The agency had returned to the suspects Rs 50000 of the total Rs 75000 paid, with the balance amount to be settled later. Police investigations have further revealed that Dev was declared a proclaimed offender (PO) in a ED case by special judge of CBI court on June 6, 2018, besides being wanted by NCB in a case dated September 9, 2017.Further investigations are in progress to ascertain the foreign links of the smugglers, and trace the properties made by them from drug money. Scientific investigations are also on to trace the records of the mobile sets seized from the accused.