Mateen Hafeez I TNN
Mumbai: Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) officials on Friday claimed that IPS officer Saji Mohan had given 10 kg of heroin to a Jammu-based agent in mid-2008 to sell it but the latter vanished with the contraband and never returned.
Mohan, it was learnt, had issued a “supari” to track down the agent and recover the heroin or the money.
The officer, who was arrested a few days ago on charges of dealing in drugs, was remanded to further seven days in police custody by the Mazgaon magistrate’s court on Friday. The court also sent two other accused—police constable Rajesh Kumar and alleged drug trader Vicky Oberoi—to judicial custody. The duo was arrested on January 17 in possession of heroin and it was their interrogation that led to Mohan’s arrest.
A senior officer in the ATS said, “Mohan had been keeping a part of the seized heroin aside and this 10 kg was part of such a seizure. He knew the Jammu-based agent, Naseeb Chand, and asked him if he could sell it. Chand promised to sell it and give money to Mohan but he vanished with the heroin, which was worth Rs 10 crore in the international market,’’ said an officer.
Mohan, a deputy director with the Enforcement Directorate in Kerala, belongs to the Jammu & Kashmir cadre.
The police have found at least two persons in Mumbai who could be used as witnesses in this case. “Saji’s co-accused, Vicky Oberoi, had contacted a drug dealer in Mahim—and another near Milan subway—and given them heroin samples to check and buy. However, the two agents refused to purchase (the same),’’ said ATS additional commissioner Param Bir Singh.
A case of misappropriation of funds had been registered in Chandigarh against Mohan for stealing Rs 13 lakh from police custody.
The police said Saji, during his tenure as zonal director of the Narcotics Control Bureau in Chandigarh, had arrested a drug peddler called Raju. Based on Raju’s statement, Mohan sent a report to the Chandigarh police stating that six cops were part of Raju’s network.
Subsequently, the police personnel were suspended. Also, Mohan had not informed his senior officers about his report against the six policemen, who were close to a deputy superintendent in Chandigarh. A “negative report about them” was compiled by Mohan at the behest of another deputy superintendent of police and a journalist. It was learnt that Saji was monitoring the phone calls of some policemen in Chandigarh.
At the court, Mohan’s father Varghese Yohannan hugged him and broke down on meeting the officer. The two of them talked for several minutes before Mohan was whisked away by the waiting ATS investigators.
Mohan, it was learnt, told his father during the interaction at the court that he knew Oberoi and Kumar but denied any wrongdoing.
The ATS is questioning superintendent of police Balwinder Singh, who was flown in from Chandigarh.
(Inputs from Kartikeya)
First babu to be booked under PMLA?
Arrested IPS officer Saji Mohan may become the first bureaucrat to be tried under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act (PMLA). Ironically, Mohan, who was last posted in Kochi as deputy director of the Enforcement Directorate (ED), will be tried by his own organisation for money laundering and drug trafficking when a case under the PMLA is registered. Sources in ED said the agency would soon initiate preliminary inquiries against the officer and gather details of all his wealth. Though there is a provision of attachment of properties and assets of an accused under the NDPS Act, the agency will have difficulties doing the same under PMLA till a chargesheet is filed by the Maharashtra police. A senior official said the government has already approved the required amendments to register a case under PMLA against an accused at the stage of an FIR, but as this has not yet been notified, the agency will have to wait till the first chargesheet in the case is filed by the ATS. TNN
The Times of India, January 31, 2009