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IPS officer arrested for heroin possession

Meena Menon & Rahi Gaikwad

12 kg of heroin worth Rs 12 crore in the foreign market seized

Officer was Zonal Director with NCB
Third such arrest in Mumbai

Mumbai: The Maharashtra Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) arrested an Indian Police Service (IPS) officer Shajji Mohan on Saturday evening for possession of 12 kg of heroin, said ATS chief K.P. Raghuvanshi here on Sunday.

Police custody

Mohan was produced in court on Sunday and remanded to police custody till January 30. Mohan is the Deputy Director of Enforcement in Kochi, a recent posting. Earlier, he was Zonal Director with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Chandigarh. He is a 1995 batch IPS officer of the Jammu and Kashmir cadre and winner of a gallantry medal during his posting there.

“We arrested him from a club in Oshiwara [a Mumbai suburb]. We have seized 12 packets of heroin weighing one kg each,” Mr. Raghuvanshi said.

This is the third arrest in Mumbai in connection with heroin possession, leading to the possibility of a drug cartel. Earlier on January 17, the ATS had arrested Rakesh Kumar and Vicky Oberoi for the same offence.

“There is some kind of a racket that these people were running. Mohan had come to Mumbai to collect money from the two men [Kumar and Oberoi],” the ATS chief said.

The heroin is of very good quality; and could have fetched a steep price, especially in the international market.

“From the purity of the material we can say that it was a very good quality heroin. In the Indian market it would be priced at Rs. 5 lakh per kg, but in the international market, it could fetch Rs. one crore per kg, taking its total worth to Rs. 12 crore abroad,” Mr. Raghuvanshi said. The police also seized a laptop and some CDs from Mohan.

Mr. Raghuvanshi told reporters that when Mohan was Zonal Director of NCB in Chandigarh, he had seized a huge consignment of drugs. He manipulated the quantity to show a lesser amount had been seized and sent some of it to Mumbai. Mohan possibly started a racket selling drugs in Mumbai.

There is no idea how heroin was siphoned off and sold. The circle of involvement could be much wider. The police are analysing his laptop and CDs to check if they have any information about the involvement of others.

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