It was not long time ago that Rajasthan Police arrested 57 people in the area who were transmitting 144kg of poppy husk in a bus. Now, this new incident happened as Bikaner Police had arrested five people on Friday, August 5, 2016, while they were carrying 50kg of “Poppy Husk”, in an Ambulance. The ambulance was hired at the rate of Rs. 300 per head so that the five accused could reach Hanumangarh in the northern Rajasthan. Out of five accused, four are said to be from Punjab.
The accused has been identified as Manjit Singh, Sukhlab Singh, and Kashmir Singh from Muktsar and Iqbal Singh from Bathinda. The ambulance was seized at the Bikaner-Hanumangarh checkpoint. During the inspection, Dhirendra Singh Shekhawat, SHO Bachiwal, got suspicious and conducted a search. He said, “When searches were conducted, police recovered four bags with poppy husk weighing around around 50 kg.”
Sharing more information, he said, “All of them had boarded a train at night from Bathinda to Bikaner Wednesday and had reached Bikaner Thursday morning. From there, they hired a transport till Philaudi in Jodhpur from where they purchased the poppy husk. The five then boarded a bus at night from Philaudi till Bikaner. After reaching their Friday morning, they struck a deal with an ambulance driver to drop them till Hanumangarh.”
After the interrogation, the accused revealed that an average of 150-200 passengers aboard a night train Bathinda to Bikaner and reach Philaudi, Bhap, Nagaur areas to buy this poison.
