NCB’s ex-zonal director held in drug racket

Oberoi,who has a prawn culture business,is a resident of Oshiwara and used to make frequent trips to Gurgaon where he posed as a film financier or producer. It was on one of these trips that he came in contact with Mohan. Kumar is a police constable from Gurgaon who was suspended for a brief period before being reinstated recently.

“On receiving information that a consignment of drugs will be brought into Oshiwara,we laid a trap on January 17. In the evening,we intercepted a Maruti SX4 which had two men in it. We recovered a total of 1.85-kg heroin from the two. When interrogated,they told us that the heroin was supplied to them by a senior officer. The ATS verified these claims and launched an operation. On Saturday evening,an ATS team arrested Saji Mohan from Classic Club in Oshiwara. We recovered 12-kg heroin from him,” said acting ATS chief K P Raghuvanshi.

According to the ATS,a kilogram of heroin is worth about Rs 1 lakh in the domestic market and Rs 1 crore in the international market. The police also seized a laptop and a few CDs from Mohan,who was booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act for possession and supply of drugs,and remanded in police custody till January 30.

“For a year and eleven months in 2007 and 2008,he was posted as the zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau in Chandigarh. A large consignment of heroin,weighing about 50 kg,was seized under his supervision. We believe Mohan showed the recovery to be of a lesser quantity and illegally set aside 30 to 35 kg. He was running this racket by circulating that portion. Further investigations are on,” said Raghuvanshi.

During his tenure in Chandigarh,Mohan had launched “Operation Tricity” to make Chandigarh,Panchkula and Mohali free of drugs. According to sources,the 50-kg consignment was seized by the NCB in October 2007. Sources said Mohan,the son of an Army officer,had played an active role in the suspension of several police officers in Chandigarh,and had even won a gallantry medal in 1999.

Mohan’s stint in Chandigarh

In Chandigarh,the NCB led by Mohan remained in the news for wrong reasons too. It hit the headlines after two of its officers,one of them was Inspector Ravi Kant Pawar,were arrested by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on charges of graft. While the CBI trial was on,Pawar was again caught on camera demanding a bribe of Rs 2 crore from a foreign national,Lada,allegedly to help her fiancé Lior Avi Ben Moyal,an Israel-based realtor facing trial in a drug-haul case.

Lada had produced the video and audio recordings of the conversations between Lada’s friend (identity withheld) and Pawar and another officer Paramjit Singh. The clips had Paramjit purported to be making certain startling revelations about the prime accused,Irani,who was caught in the same case but was allegedly let off after he greased the palms of NCB officials. Pawar was allegedly caught negotiating his price to help Lior.

On the other hand,an NCB team led by Saji Mohan arrested a man and recovered 4 kg of heroin,worth Rs 4 crore in the international market,in July last year. Liakat Ali alias Lakhwinder Singh was caught with the contraband wrapped in a polythene bag near the Chandigarh airport where he was supposed to deliver it to a Nigerian national who,however,failed to turn up.

Saji Mohan had then told mediapersons in a press conference: “A Pakistan-based group is running a close-knit network of heroin traffickers and their kingpin is a Pakistani national,who is at present lodged in a Punjab jail. They bring this heroin via Amritsar. Some Nigerians are the main buyers who further take it to European markets.” Mohan and his team were also responsible for cracking drug-peddling cases in Himachal Pradesh,particularly in the Kullu and Manali region,and Punjab.

Also,Mohan was extensively quoted by the media last year,when the NCB team arrested a notorious drug-peddler,Raju,who indicated towards the involvement of a few Chandigarh Police officers in the drug-trafficking racket. Based on Mohan’s report,six officers were placed under suspension.

(With Varinder Bhatia and Varun Chadha in Chandigarh)

• NDPS case slapped against Saji Mohan who was transferred from Chandigarh to Kochi in December

• Officer caught in Mumbai with 12-kg heroin that was part of contraband seized from Chandigarh,says ATS