In Yudh Nasheyan Virudh numbers, a big story: 407 woman smugglers arrested

The number of arrests in other districts and commissionerates of police (CP) are Sangrur (33), Jalandhar Rural (28), Ludhiana CP (27), Patiala (24), Barnala (21), Kapurthala (21), Faridkot (17), Gurdaspur (16), Muktsar (16), Moga (15), Amritsar CP (14), Ludhiana Rural (14), SBS Nagar (14), Mansa (12), Amritsar Rural (9), Bathinda (9), Ferozepur (8), Khanna police district (8), Fazilka (7), Fatehgarh Sahib (6), Jalandhar CP (6), Tarn Taran (6), Malerkotla (5), Pathankot (4), Batala police district (3), Ropar (3) and Mohali (2). Notably, women drug smugglers have been arrested in each of the 23 districts of Punjab, it says.

This list also includes 16 women from other states have been arrested in Punjab — Haryana (3), West Bengal (3), Delhi (2), Jharkhand (2), Uttar Pradesh (2), Chandigarh (1), Himachal Pradesh (1), Madhya Pradesh (1) and Rajasthan (1).

The recent arrest of woman police constable Amandeep Kaur in Bathinda for alleged drug smuggling has brought into sharp focus the role of women in Punjab in the drug trade, prompting the Punjab Police to swing into action with women smugglers.

Speaking with The Indian Express, Sandeep Kumar Malik, Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Hoshiarpur, where the maximum number of women drug smugglers were arrested, said, “Certain areas in the district are known for smuggling. It’s like a family business. In many instances, we found women with multiple FIRs registered against them for drug smuggling.”

“With male members of several families behind bars in previous smuggling cases, it is often left to their women to continue the trade. It is observed that the men lodged in jail give commands to their women for selling drugs. Hence, there is a complete ecosystem of drug merchandising within the family,” the SSP added.

Constable Amandeep Kaur’s arrest allegedly with 17 grams of narcotics made headlines due to her fame as an Instagram celebrity, but the Punjab Police claimed to have caught several notorious women smugglers in the border district of Amritsar during the ongoing drive.

On March 26, Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav divulged that the Amritsar Commissionerate Police dismantled a cross-border drug cartel with the arrest of one Mandeep Kaur (27) of Ibban Kalan village in Amritsar and three others with 5.2 kg of heroin.

“The preliminary investigation revealed that Mandeep was in a relationship with a person who introduced her to Pakistan-based smugglers. Mandeep’s ancestral house is in the border village of Khalra in Tarn Taran, approximately two kilometres from the Indo-Pak border fence,” Yadav said.

The DGP further said Mandeep would occasionally don a police uniform to carry out her activities.

On March 18, Amritsar police arrested two women with 10 pistols and 2 kg of heroin at Bharopal village under the Gharinda police station of the Amritsar rural police district. Kuljit Kaur and Rajbir Kaur were arrested under the NDPS and Arms Acts, the DGP said.

Senior police officials said not only women from modest backgrounds were found involved in the drug trade, but they arrested former Congress MLA Satkar Kaur, who is now in the BJP, and her driver for allegedly trying to sell 100 grams of heroin in Mohali’s Kharar area in October 2024.

Satkar was at the wheels of a luxury car and had come to deliver heroin after a Rs 2.5 lakh deal, police said.

Kaur was the MLA from the Ferozepur rural constituency from 2017 to 2022 and joined the BJP in 2022 after the Congress denied her a ticket to contest the Assembly elections.