Chargesheet against Saji likely this week

Mateen Hafeez I TNN
Mumbai: The state Anti-Terrorism Squad (ATS) is likely to submit the chargesheet against Saji Mohan (37), an IPS officer of 1995 batch, for alleged drug trafficking this week. The police claimed that Saji had accepted a consignment of 12 kg heroin from a person at Mumbai Central railway station on January 24 and took it to Classique club in Oshiwara from where he was arrested.

According to the police, Saji, who was in Delhi for training after his posting with Enforcement Directorate, came to Mumbai on January 23. He was earlier posted with Chandigarh Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB).

The ATS had intercepted a phone conversation between Saji and co-accused, city-based businessman Vicky Oberoi and constable Rajesh Kumar of Haryana police. Cops also traced the SMSes exchanged among them.

Saji is accused of delivering commercial quantities of heroin worth over Rs 12 crore in the international market and collecting payment for selling an earlier consignment in Mumbai. “Saji, during his stint as zonal director of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Chandigarh and Jammu & Kashmir, had stolen over 50 kg of heroin in all from NCB’s seizure. To avoid suspicion, Saji would replace the stolen amounts of heroin with soda lime. He would set aside some quantity of the seized drug and later sell it,’’ said an officer.

At the time of his arrest, Saji was entitled to a salary of Rs 71,000 per month. He had also earned Rs 30 lakh by illegally releasing people caught in connection with narcotics cases in Jammu and Chandigarh.

Saji headed anti-drug trafficking activities over a swathe of northwest India for about two years when he was posted as the zonal director of the NCB in Chandigarh from 2006-08. Moreover, he had been conferred a bravery award in 1999.

In January, the ATS had also arrested Oberoi, a local fish vendor, and Kumar from Mumbai and seized 1.8 kg heroin. Later, the police also recovered 25 kg of heroin from Oberoi’s residence, which Saji had given him to sell in the open market for Rs 5 lakh per kg. Saji is facing another case of embezzlement of Rs 13 lakh in Chandigargh. He has been booked under sections 8(1)(c) and 21 of the NDPS Act.

The Times of India, May 4, 2009