Woman lands in onion soup of her own making

Jasbir Kaur could have been a master salad chef had she put her vegetable cutting skills to better use.

Jasbir Kaur could have been a master salad chef had she put her vegetable cutting skills to better use. On Monday,though,the woman landed in the police net after her deft attempt to smuggle drugs inside Bathinda Central Jail by concealing them in onion bulbs failed at the second hurdle. By the time her trick was discovered,Kaur,her husband and a child were enjoying a meal of poori-chhole in the safety of Bathinda railway station,but crafty thinking on part of the jail officials and their legendary strong-arm tactics kept Kaur from getting away.

The story unfolds like a crime thriller. On Monday morning,Jasbir Kaur,resident of a Sangrur village, arrived at the Bathinda jail accompanied by her husband and one child. She had with her a present of onions for two inmates,Maan Singh alias Manoj Kumar and Jarnail Singh,who have been behind bars since January 6 in connection with a case registered against them at Bareta police station on December 30,2010. Police say,unknown to her husband,Jasbir was having an affair with Maan Singh.

Jasbirs onions were indeed special. She had cleverly cut four of them from the sides,hollowed out their middles,packed drugs inside and sealed them to look like perfectly normal onions. The bulbs together contained 125 grams of sulfa (a bhang-like substance) and 2,500 tablets of Lomotil,which is supposed to be an anti-diarrhoeal drug but is much abused as a mood elevator.

In all,she brought 11 onions,about a kilo and a half in weight, said Kaur Singh,Jail Deputy Superintendent. She claims she got the sulfa for Rs 2,000.

Jail warder Jagjit Singh,who received the present,saw nothing amiss in it,and let it pass. Convinced that her ploy had worked,Jasbir Kaur quickly beat her way back to the railway station with her child and her unsuspecting husband. However,just as her present was about to reach Maan Singh,another jail warder,Niranjan Singh,gave it a complete once over,and saw packets of salt tumble out of the onions.

Finding Jasbir gone,the jail officials used Maan Singh as a bait to draw her in. They made the prisoner call and ask her for Rs 500. When Jasbir replied she could not come back from the station,Maan Singh asked her to wait for somebody from the prison to come and collect the cash. Jasbir told him her exact coordinates and sat down to wait with poori-chhole while Kaur Singh and Assistant Deputy Superintendent of the jail Balwinder Singh swooped down on the railway station for her.

Jasbir was caught,and jail warder Jagjit Singh,who let her packet through,was suspended for negligence. As for Jasbirs husband,Jail Superintendent SS Saggu said he,is a very simple person and was not involved in the incident. He even started crying when he learnt about his wife smuggling drugs to the inmates.

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Civil Lines SHO Jaspal Singh,told The Indian Express in the evening that he had received a letter from the jail authorities. We are going to register a case under sections of NDPS Act and take Jasbir into custody, he said.

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