2 more smugglers detained under PIT-NDPS Act, sent to Assam jail
This is the 2nd time in five days that NCB has detained smugglers to break the jail-based drug mafia nexus
Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Saturday detained two drug smugglers Akshay Chhabra and Jaspal Singh, alias Goldy, under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PIT-NDPS) Act and sent them to Dibrugarh Jail in Assam.
While Chhabra hails from Ludhiana, his close aide Goldy hails from Sahnewal of Ludhiana. The duo were lodged in Bathinda Central Jail and were detained after they continued their nefarious activities while inside the jail, resulting in three additional FIRs against Chhabra and an additional FIR under the NDPS Act against Goldy.
The PIT-NDPS Act 1988, provides for the preventive detention of repeat offenders. With this, a total of three drug smugglers have been sent to Dibrugarh Jail in Assam, which already houses Khadoor Sahib MP Amritpal Singh and his nine aides, who have been detained under stringent National Security
Act (NSA) since 2023. The Dibrugarh prison is one of the oldest and most high-security jails in the Northeast and was constructed in 1859-60.
This is the second such case in less than five days in which the PIT-NDPS Act has been invoked to break the jail-based drug mafia nexus in the region.
According to a senior NCB official, a person can be detained under the PIT-NDPS Act even if he is lodged in jail.
“If a person is deemed to be a potential threat in drug cases, he can be kept in detention. This detention will continue even if the accused gets bail in cases registered against him,” the senior official said, pleading anonymity.
On August 13, PIT-NDPS Act was invoked for the first time, after the Punjab police, in a joint operation with the NCB, took notorious drug smuggler Balwinder Singh, alias Billa Sarpanch, alias Billa Havellian, into preventive custody and sent him to Dibrugarh.
Punjab gave nod to PIT-NDPS a year ago
As per the information, the Punjab government, led by chief minister Bhagwant Mann, had given the go-ahead to implement the PIT-NDPS on January 24 last year after a strong perusal of the case by the Punjab DGP.
NCB had also pushed for the detention of smugglers under PIT-NDPS.
Though cases forwarded to the Punjab home department are still pending, NCB has got the necessary permission from the Union home ministry.
Nearly 60 proposals are pending with the Punjab home department for taking drug smugglers and their conduits into preventive custody. However, none of these cases have been cleared so far.
The Narcotics Bureau too had sent three such proposals, involving big drug kingpins, around six months ago, but the home department has put these too in cold storage.
Ran their drug syndicate from jail: NCB probe
In a press release issued on Saturday, the NCB’s Chandigarh zonal stated that both the detainees, despite being in jail, had continued their nefarious activities, resulting in three additional FIRs against Akshay Chhabra, from Ludhiana, and an additional FIR under the NDPSAct against Goldy. “Both of them were being sent to Dibrugarh jail in Assam as a step to curtail their narcosmuggling activities,” the release stated.
According to the release, Chhabra was arrested from Jaipur airport while attempting to flee the country to Sharjah on November 24, 2022. During the investigation by the NCB, the name of Jaspal Singh, alias Goldy, also cropped up as one of the main members of Chhabra’s drug syndicate.
During NCB probe, it came to the fore that this international drug syndicate based in Ludhiana had smuggled close to 1,400kg of heroin from the international check post (ICP) at Attari in Punjab, Mundra seaport in Gujarat and via J&K.
Notably, a total of 20 people had been arrested by the NCB in this case, including the kingpin, traffickers, white-collar criminals and two Afghan nationals.
To date, the NCB has recovered about 40kg of heroin, 0.557kg of opium, 23.645kg of suspected narcotics powder, four bottles of HCL, 31 bullets and a magazine from the syndicate. Two heroin processing hideouts were also busted, the release added. The immovable and movable properties worth ₹57 crore of the drug syndicate has frozen to date.