Chandigarh: A major break-through has been effected in the drive against drug trafficking with further coordinated investigations of the Punjab Police in association with the Mumbai Police Crime Branch, into the Rajasthan-based Canadian national Devinder Singh @ Dev masterminded international synthetic drug racket leading to arrests of two key operatives fromNew Delhiand Mumbai respectively.
The Punjab police have arrested Dr. Sanjay Goel s/o Ram Niwas Goel r/o ‘Shiv Ashish House’, H.No. 565/6B, Golf View Park, Dr. A.Soares Road, Chembur, Mumbai- (arrested from hotel Taj Palace, New Delhi on 16-01-2014) and Basant Srivastav s/o Shiv Nandan Srivastav r/o Flat No. 78, Plot No. 11, Sector 17, Vaashi, New Mumbai- (arrested on 16-1-2014 from his residence in New Mumbai)Disclosing this here today, Mr. Dinkar Gupta, Additional DGP/Law & Order informed that this important and major break-through in the drive against drug trafficking follows systematic and meticulous investigations by the Punjab Police with the objective of exposure of drug networks in a complete and end-to-end manner from source of supply to the distribution network.
He revealed that the Punjab Police had started a two-tier interrogation of drug smugglers from October 14, 2013 onwards, with the smugglers being questioned firstly by the district police, followed by sustained interrogation by officials of the State Special Operations Cell (SSOC) in the Joint Interrogation Center at Amritsar. This two-tier interrogation was being carried out under the supervision of the Counter Intelligence Wing of the Punjab Police. So far, over 100 smugglers have been interrogated. These interrogations have yielded valuable information about the various cogs in the different drug networks so as to enable the Punjab Police to smash these drug networks in an end-to-end manner, from source of supply to the distribution network. The focus was not limited to the State ofPunjab. Networks operating in other parts of the country were also being detected and action being taken, he added.
He pointed out that the investigations in this massive international synthetic drug racket led by Devinder Singh @ Dev had revealed that precursor chemicals Katamine, ephedrine and pseudoephedrine were procured by the drug racketeers from Hyderabad, Mumbai, Delhi etc. after diverting from medicinal sectors and smuggled into Canada. The processing of the precursor chemicals to manufacture synthetic drugs was done mainly inCanadaby Chinese and Vietnamese nationals.
After the completion of initial ground work by the advance party, a police party headed by Superintendent of Police Jaskiranjit Singh and Deputy Superintendent of Police Arshdeep Singh and Drug Inspector Sh. Jai Jaikar Singh with 17 police personnel, including two lady constables and accused mastermind Devinder Singh @ Dev who was on police remand reached Mumbai on 16-01-2014 and established liaison with the Mumbai Crime Branch and Sh. Niket Kaushik, Additional Commissioner, Crime Branch, Mumbai. He said that the arrest of Dr. Sanjay Goel was effected from hotel Taj Palace, Sardar Patel Road, New Delhi as he had gone to New Delhi for a day. The arrest of Basant Srivastav have been effected from his New Mumbai residence.