A decoy middleman, a ‘buyer’ from Shimla with bumper apple sale: How Punjab Police laid trap for ex-MLA supplying heroin

Sources in the police department familiar with the purported conversations between Kaur and a decoy middleman setup by the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF), said that Kaur told him that she would procure the heroin from a supplier only when the buyer would be ready to take the delivery.

In this conversation that took place ahead of the supply day, sources said the “decoy” posed to act as middleman between the buyer who he told Kaur, was ‘from Shimla” and had money to buy the drug after the recent “apple harvest season”. Police arrested Satkar Kaur and her nephew Jaskeerat Singh on October 23 in the case, recovering 100 grams of heroin, when she was on her way to allegedly supply the drug in Kharar. Rs 2.5 lakh was recovered from Jaskeerat which he allegedly received from decoy middleman.

Investigators said that it was “cut out” modus operandi, where one person collected the amount and another came with drugs to supply, in two different cars. An official said that the drug supplier from whom Kaur “procured the heroin to sell it further” had been “identified”. The ANTF official said that prima facie, to avoid getting caught with any commercial quantity, Kaur was not keeping any large quantity of the drug and ‘procured only at the time of selling’.

Police said that Kaur was caught with the heroin which she had brought along to sell in a BMW car she drove by herself. A court in Mohali extended her police remand by two days, Friday. Kaur who was produced in a court and was subjected to a medical examination Thursday told media that she was “innocent” and had been “falsely implicated” in the case.

The Anti-Narcotics Task Force, it was learnt, is analysing kaur’s bank transactions. A source said that a number of “suspected drug” transactions where money got credited into her bank account linked with a unified payment interface (UPI) were being looked into. The source said among such transactions, many were “not of large sums of amounts”.

The ANTF, source said, was in process to identify and question the persons involved in such ‘suspect transactions’. The ANTF decoy had provided two mobile numbers and ‘recordings’ as he tipped-off ANTF about Kaur and “her nephew” indulging in “heroin supply at a massive scale”. The decoy told ANTF that he himself was “a drug addict” and “purchased drugs from the duo for his addiction habit”. The decoy further claimed that the duo “forced him daily to strike big drug deals due to money allurement.”

As per the FIR registered in the case at STF Police Station, Mohali, and accessed by The Indian Express, Kaur was using the mobile number which was issued in the name of a family member and “which was linked a SBI account of Satkar Kaur”. Another phone number that was used in drug deals, as per the details in the FIR, was “in the name of Barinder Singh”.

A resident of Lalle village in Ferozepur district, Barinder was also named as accused in the FIR. An ANTF official said Barinder was yet to be arrested. The FIR, which was registered under sections 21 (Punishment for contravention in relation to manufactured drugs and preparations) and 29 (Punishment for abetment and criminal conspiracy) of NDPS Act in Mohali on October 23, read that at about 3:13 pm on October 22, a conversation of Satkar Kaur with ‘decoy’ took place in which they discussed about heroin/chitta supply and its rate on phone. This conversation took place on the number registered in Barinder Singh’s name.

It was learnt that the ANTF ‘source’ who acted as ‘decoy’ managed to talk to Satkar Kaur on a normal phone call which was recorded, on the pretext that there was network issue and hence WhatsApp call was having distortions. Sources told that ANTF officials were in total disbelief that ex-MLA herself came to deliver the heroin. The ANTF had approached Mohali district magistrate to carry along two independent witnesses, any two government employees, as the police teams laid a trap. An official said that the ex-MLA “made several rounds in the car in the area before being nabbed with the heroin”.

After Kaur’s arrest from Kharar, during search at her Sunny Enclave residence in Kharar, police Wednesday recovered another 28 grams of heroin apart from Rs 1.56 lakh in cash and some gold ornaments. Police also recovered four vehicles and several registration plates of Delhi and Haryana and suspected that these were being used in the drug supply racket.

Kaur was the MLA from the Ferozepur Rural constituency from 2017 to 2022. She joined the BJP in 2022 after the Congress denied her a ticket to contest the Assembly elections. A day after his arrest, the Punjab BJP expelled her from the party on Thursday for six years.

Arrest highlights Opp’s role in drug crisis: AAP

Reacting to the arrest of former Congress MLA from Ferozepur Rural Satkar Kaur in a drugs case, an AAP spokesperson said that it is another example of how deeply these parties are involved with the drug smugglers. Satkar Kaur is currently in the BJP, so the AAP also called out the BJP to act on this matter. In a statement released to the media, AAP senior spokesperson Neel Garg condemned the role of opposition parties, Congress, BJP, and Akali Dal, in perpetuating drug smuggling in Punjab. He emphasized, “The roots of drug trafficking got deep in Punjab, and these parties have turned a blind eye to the destruction caused by addiction.”

Garg highlighted the recent arrest of former MLA Satkar Kaur, linking her to drug dealings. He asserted that these political figures have historically provided shelter to drug traffickers, undermining efforts to combat addiction in the state. “This is not just a political issue; it’s about the future of our youth,” he stated.