Pune court remands drug cartel kingpin Lalit Patil to police custody till November 7

Along with Patil, Pune police had also taken custody of two more alleged drug racketeers — Shivaji Shinde and Rahul Pandit alias Rohitkumar Chowdhary. The two were also remanded to Pune police’s custody till November 7 by the court Wednesday.

After escaping from the Sassoon hospital on October 2, Patil was arrested by Mumbai police on October 17 from a village near Bangalore. A court in Mumbai had remanded Patil to the custody of Mumbai police for further investigation.

After he was remanded to judicial custody and was lodged in Arthur Road prison in Mumbai, Pune city police had initiated the procedure to take his custody from the Mumbai jail and arrest him in connection with the drug seizure case in Pune.

Shinde and Chowdhary were arrested along with Patil in the same Mephedrone production and smuggling case lodged at Sakinaka police station in Mumbai and they too were lodged at the Arthur Road Prison in Mumbai.

Patil was among the 22 people arrested in the Chakan mephedrone seizure of 2020 and was lodged at the Yerawada jail since then but he often managed to get himself admitted at Sassoon hospital for treatment, the probe has revealed.

The probe also revealed that Patil, while being admitted at ward number 16 of the Sassoon hospital, allegedly supplied mephedrone worth Rs 2.14 crore to his aide Subhash Mandal through a hospital canteen staffer on September 30.

An FIR was lodged against Lalit, Mandal and the canteen staffer under NDPS Act. While a probe into this case was on, Lalit escaped from the hospital on October 2. A separate offence was lodged against Lalit for escaping custody. He was arrested on October 17.

Meanwhile, while probing a separate case of narcotics, the Mumbai police had raided a factory in Nashik and seized mephedrone worth Rs 300 crore from the spot.

The police said Lalit’s brother Bhushan Patil was running the factory. Investigation had also revealed that the factory was set up as per a planning done in Yerawada jail by Lalit and co-accused Arvindkumar Lohare, a chemical expert held in the Chakan drug seizure case.

Lohare was once again arrested by Pune police for investigation into the latest drugs seizure.

On October 11, Pune City police had arrested Bhushan Patil and aide Abhishek Balkawade. Pune police also took custody of Rehan Ansari alias Golu from Taloja jail in Mumbai. The police said Ansari allegedly transported mephedrone from the factory in Nashik.

Pune police further arrested Bhushan and Balkawade along with Vinay Aranha (50), a partner in Pune’s Rosary Education Group and lawyer Pradnya Kamble for their alleged role in Lalit’s escape from the hospital.

The police also probed Kamble’s role in a drug racket allegedly operated by Lalit. A court in Pune has on Monday remanded Bhushan, Balkawade, Kamble, Lohare, Ansari and Aranha to magisterial custody at the Yerawada jail.