532 kg heroin haul: ‘Kingpin has farmland along Indo-Pak border’
“Rana and his brothers used to work as labourers in the village (Havelian). The family has 1.5 acres of land along the border,” said village sarpanch Sarmukh Singh.
After the customs department traced the kingpin in the ‘biggest ever’ drug haul in the state to one Ranjit Singh alias Rana of Ram Tirath village in the district, it has come to fore that the accused has 1.5 acres of agriculture land along the India-Pakistan border in Havelian village of Tarn Taran district.
Rana and his family had left Havelian village seven-year ago and had been living in Baba Darshan Singh Avenue at Ram Tirath road for the last seven years.
Station house officer of SaraE-Amanat Khan police station, Ranjit Singh, said “We recently came to know that Rana’s ancestral village was Havelian. We are investigating it and also trying to ascertain whether Rana has any criminal record.”
“Rana and his brothers used to work as labourers in the village (Havelian). The family has 1.5 acres of land along the border,” said village sarpanch Sarmukh Singh.
Earlier on June 29, the customs had recovered 532 kg of heroin from a consignment of 600bag of rock salt imported from Pakistan at the ICP.
The customs had arrested Gurpinder Singh and Tariq Ahmed and sent them to judicial custody for 14 days.
Later, the customs traced owner of the truck which was supposed to carry the consignment from Gurpinder’s godown in Amritsar. The truck owner, Jasbir Singh, was arrested on Friday who informed the customs officials that the consignment was to be delivered to one Ranjit Singh of Ram Tirath village.
ANOTHER TRADER ON POLICE RADAR
Police have taken another Amritsar-based trader, Ajay Gupta, into custody on the information provided by Tariq.
Senior superintendent of police Vikramjit Singh Duggal said, “We have come to know that the truck driver Jasbir was also in contact with Gupta Fast Forward firm in Amritsar. The firm’s owner is being questioned.”
The SSP also didn’t rule out that such consignments would have been cleared earlier too. “We are verifying the background of Rana and Jasbir. They might have cleared consignments on earlier occasions too,” he said.
BORDER FARMERS LINK WITH PAK SMUGGLERS
The revelation of Rana’s involvement into the high profile smuggling case has once again put the Punjab Police on alert.
A senior special task force (STF) official said, “Many border farmers are in contact with the smugglers in Pakistan. The farmers, who have their family connections in Pakistan, are being easily lured by these smugglers.”
