Punjab Police busts cross-border drug cartel woman kingpin among 4 held

Chandigarh, Mar 23 (PTI) Amritsar Commissionerate Police have busted a cross-border drug cartel with the arrest of a woman kingpin and her three operatives after recovering 5.2 kg heroin from their possession, an official said on Sunday.
     The kingpin has been identified as Mandeep Kaur (27) from Amritsar's Ibban Kalan village, Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav said.
     The other arrested operatives have been identified as Alam Arora (23) and Manmeet alias Golu (21), both residents of Janta Colony in Amritsar's Chheharta; and an 18-year-old youth from Tarn Taran.
     DGP Yadav said preliminary investigations have revealed that Mandeep was in a relationship with a person, who introduced her to Pakistan-based smugglers.
     Mandeep's ancestral house is located in border village of Khalra in Tarn Taran, which is approximately 2 km away from the fencing of the Indo-Pak border, he said in an official statement.
     The DGP said the probe has also uncovered evidence that Mandeep would occasionally don a police uniform to impersonate a police officer to carry out nefarious activities. Further investigations are on to establish backward and forward linkages in this case.
     Sharing operation details, Commissioner of Police (CP) Amritsar Gurpreet Singh Bhullar said that following reliable inputs about woman drug smuggler running a drug cartel, police teams under the supervision of DCP investigation Ravinder Pal Singh Sandhu, along with police party apprehended Mandeep, Alam and Manmeet from Amritsar's Chheharta.
     Later, on the revelations of Mandeep about the involvement of another individual, police teams also arrested the 18-year-old youth from the same area, he said.
     Bhullar said that further investigations are ongoing and more arrests and recoveries are likely in coming days.
     A case has been registered under various provisions of the of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act at Police Station Chheharta in Amritsar, he said.

(This story has not been edited by THE WEEK and is auto-generated from PTI)