Woman drug trafficking kingpin, who donned police uniform, held in Punjab

Chandigarh, March 23 (IANS/WISHAVWARTA) In a major breakthrough, Amritsar Commissionerate Police has busted a cross-border drug cartel with the arrest of a woman kingpin, Mandeep Kaur, who occasionally donned a uniform to impersonate a police officer to carry out her nefarious activities, and her three operatives after recovering 5.2 kg heroin from their possession, Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav said on Sunday.

The other arrested operatives have been identified as Alam Arora, 23, and Manmeet alias Golu, 21, both residents of Janta Colony in Chheharta in Amritsar; and an 18-year-old boy (name withheld) of Tarn Taran.

DGP Yadav said that preliminary investigations have revealed that accused Mandeep Kaur, 27, was in a relationship with a person, who introduced her to Pakistan-based smugglers.

Mandeep Kaur’s ancestral house is located in the border village of Khalra in Tarn Taran, which is approximately two kilometres from the fence in the India-Pakistan border, he said.

The DGP said that the probe has also uncovered evidence that she would occasionally don a police uniform to carry out her activities.

Further investigations are on to establish the backward and forward linkages in this case, he added.

Sharing details of the operation, Amritsar’s Commissioner of Police Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said that following inputs about a woman drug smuggler running a drug cartel, police teams under the supervision of DCP, Investigation, Ravinder Pal Singh Sandhu and ADCP, Investigation, NavjotSingh, a police party apprehended Mandeep Kaur and her two operatives Alam and Manmeet from the Chheharta area in Amritsar.

Later, on the revelations of accused Mandeep Kaur about the involvement of another individual, police teams have also arrested him from there, he said.

The Commissioner of Police said that further investigations are ongoing and more arrests and recoveries in the case are likely in the coming days.

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