Gaurav Kanthwal
Mohali, July 24
This seems to be straight out of a Bollywood potboiler–an interstate gang of smugglers sitting tight in a speeding ambulance with 8kg opium in the pillow under the patient’s head. Only that they ran into a police party waiting for them at the Dappar toll plaza on Ambala-Chandigarh highway.
Cops said when they hailed the van yesterday evening, the trio pretended to be heading to a hospital, with one of them lying on a stretcher, posing as a patient. Cops grew suspicious when they saw the oxygen cylinder and first aid kit missing in the ambulance. On checking the passengers thoroughly, police found 8kg opium stashed inside the pillow placed under the ‘patient’s’ head.
The gang had ferried about 8 to 10kg opium around ten times using the same modus operandi, cops said.
The suspects, identified as Rampur (UP) resident Ravi Srivastav (28), Nayagaon resident Harinder Sharma (47), and Khudda Ali Sher resident Ankush (27), have been arrested under the NDPS Act at the Lalru police station on July 23.
Mohali SSP Vivek S Soni said the suspects, all local residents, will be produced in the court and their police remand obtained. “There will be more important revelations. The investigation of the case is going on,” he said.
Ambulance with fake patient caught smuggling drugs; 3 held with 8kg opium
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