Ex-star athlete caught peddling party drug

NEW DELHI: Harpreet Singhwon a silver medal in discus throw at the Commonwealth Youth Games in Australia in 2004. Two years later, he won a bronze at the Colombo SAF Games. The ex-international athlete has made news again, but for an entirely different reason — he was among three people arrested with a huge consignment of the latest party drug in town, meow meow.

Around 25kg of the drug worth over Rs 50 crore has been seized from the trio, police said. This isn’t 30-year-old Singh’s first brush with infamy. He was earlier suspended after testing positive for steroids at a national competition.

The Delhi-based athlete tried to make a comeback but was forced to quit the sport after getting injured while training for the 2010 Commonwealth Games. Police said Singh dabbled in real estate for a while before entering the shady world of drug-dealing.

The other arrested men are Amandeep Singh, 29, and Harnish Sarpal, 36, all from west Delhi. DCP (special cell) Sanjeev Yadav said that the southwestern range had received information that Amandeep was flying to Mumbai to receive the drug consignment from an international syndicate and would return early Wednesday.

A special team led by ACP Akhilesh Yadav and inspector Tilak Chandra Bisht was formed and a trap laid at all entry and exit points of the New Delhi railway station. The informer had tipped us off that Singh and his associate had boarded a Dadar-Amritsar train and would reach Delhi with the drugs.

At 6.15 am, two men were spotted waiting at the State Entry Road parking gate. “At the informer’s instance, sleuths approached the two. But they started running. They were nabbed after a hot chase,” Yadav said.

They were identified as Hardeep and Amandeep. Hanish was later arrested on their disclosures. During interrogation, cops learnt that Amandeep was studied in the UK. He had come in contact with one Kishan from Nagaur (Rajasthan) and Hanish from Vikaspuri, Delhi and began to do drugs there. Kishan then lured them into drug peddling. Later, Amandeep’s neighbour, Harpreet, also joined them due to a cash crunch. The suspects have revealed that every member had a specific role in the syndicate.

“So far, Kailash Rajput from Dubai and Kishan from the UK have been identified as the kingpins of the gang. Kishan has a chain of associates in Mumbai. Once the consignment reaches Mumbai, Kishan and Kailash coordinate with their Delhi-Mumbai based agents who are then directed to fetch the drug and subsequently send it to UAE, UK, USA, Malaysia and other middle-east countries,” Yadav added. The cops are now hunting for gang members active in Mumbai and other parts of the country. Teams have been sent to two states to nab them. Last year too, the cell had arrested nine people with 14kg of meow meow.