Punjab: Ex-DGP shares with Vigilance Bureau '€˜knowledge'€™ ABOUT NDPS case against Majithia

Chandigarh, Jun 27 (PTI) Former Punjab DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya on Friday met a team of the Vigilance Bureau which is probing the disproportionate assets case against Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) leader Bikram Singh Majithia and said he shared his "experience and knowledge" with it regarding the drug case registered against the former minister in 2021.

The Vigilance Bureau on June 25 arrested Majithia in a disproportionate assets case allegedly involving the laundering of Rs 540 crore of "drug money".

Chattopadhyaya was appointed as the officiating DGP during the then Charanjit Singh Channi-led Congress government in December 2021. He was the officiating DGP when Majithia was booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on December 20, 2021.

Talking to reporters here, Chattopadhyaya stressed wiping out the drug menace from the state, saying this "scourge" has destroyed the state.

"Till the time we do not eliminate drug syndicates and rein in drug traffickers, Punjab cannot move ahead. Why are so many youths going abroad? It is also because families fear that their child may fall prey to the drug habit," said the former Punjab Police chief.

He further said Punjab Police is making its best efforts to check the drug menace.

The ex-DGP said, " In 2021, we registered a case... The things that came to the fore at that time, I came to tell the SIT and Vigilance team what had happened then and what information we had. I had come to give them detailed background so that they could effectively carry out their investigations in the present case.

"I shared my experience, knowledge, what we gathered from our sources then, I apprised the investigating team. What was the background, what information, what facts were before us based upon which we had registered a case then," said Chattopadhyaya.

Replying to a question, he said, "I want to clarify that I did not come to record my statement." In the fresh FIR registered against Majithia, the Vigilance Bureau claimed that preliminary investigations revealed that more than Rs 540 crore of "drug money" had been laundered through several ways and it was allegedly facilitated by Majithia.

This FIR against Majithia stems from an ongoing investigation being conducted by a Punjab Police special investigation team into the 2021 drug case.

In 2021, Majithia was booked under sections 25 (punishment for allowing one's premises for its use for the commission of an offence), 27 A (punishment for financing illicit trafficking and harbouring offenders) and 29 (for abetting or plotting an offence) of the NDPS Act.

The action was taken on the basis of a 2018 report of the anti-drug special task force. The FIR was registered by the state Crime Branch at its Mohali police station.

Majithia spent more than five months in Patiala jail and walked out of prison in August 2022 after the Punjab and Haryana High Court granted him bail.

Chattopadhyaya had also headed a special investigation team, formed by the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2017, to probe the role of police officials in the drug trade.

The Chattopadhyaya-led SIT had probed the allegations of complicity of Raj Jit Singh, the then senior superintendent of police, Moga, in respect of his alleged association with dismissed police inspector Inderjit Singh. PTI SUN KSS KSS