Punjab Police question Vijender Singh

Days after the multi-crore drug racket was unearthed, the Punjab Police quizzed Olympic medal winner Vijender Singh on Monday evening for his alleged role in the drug racket.

His questioning took place not in Punjab where the case has been registered, but in neighboring district of Panchkula in Haryana. Vijender was quizzed for three-and-half hours in the presence of police teams from Haryana and Punjab. Vijender, a recipient of the Rajiv Gandhi Khel Ratna award, is also a deputy superintendent of police in Haryana.

In the presence of two private witnesses, Vijender was asked for his consent for giving his blood and hair samples required for forensic examination for investigation purpose, which he refused.

There was uncertainty over the location where Vijender was quizzed. He was questioned in Mooginand area in Panchkula. The Punjab Police questioned him on the recovery of his wife’s car outside the residence of the drug kingpin in Zirakpur. He was also quizzed on the disclosures made by fellow international boxer Ram Singh that he experimented with heroine. His family sources said Vijender has pleaded innocent in the entire episode, even as the police are to come out with precise details of Vijender’s questioning.

According to official information, the Punjab Police said it tied up with the Haryana Police for questioning of Vijender Singh. A team headed by a DSP and Inspector of the Punjab Police went to Panchkula to the office of Hardeep Singh Doon, SSP Crime and Telecommunication, and questioned Singh.

As more skeletons tumble out of the cupboard in the multi-crore drug seizure case in Punjab, it has now come to fore that the kingpin of the drug trade, who claimed Olympian medalist Vijender Singh as one of his “clients”, allegedly had Chinese dealers among others as partners in crime. According to sources, a few Chinese dealers had visited Chandigarh to meet arrested kingpin Annop Singh Kahlon purportedly for some deals.

The Chinese dealers stayed in three city hotels for nearly 20 days and also turned their hotel rooms into make-shift laboratories for testing the genuineness of the chemicals and drugs, it is learnt.

As the police sweat hard to unravel the real faces behind the drug trafficking nexus, which has assumed proportions beyond Indian borders, the police are also on the lookout of a Holland-based “drug lord” who could be a key player in the whole trafficking nexus. 

Some more names of sportsmen who may have possible been “clients” at some time could emerge in the case. His direct involvement in the case so far it appears is limited to the statement of his roommate and international boxer Ram Singh, who has admitted to have experimented heroine along with Vijender a few times.

Boxer Ram Singh later had “rephrased” his statement claiming that they both took some food supplement which turned out to be heroin.

Vijender has not denied the fact that he had met kingpin Canada-based NRI Kahlon, a university medalist and a shot-put champion, although the boxer has held that he did not know Kahlon directly and neither did he consume heroine. A car registered in the name of Vijender’s wife was also found outside the residence of Kahlon, from where the drugs were confiscated.

The police had seized 26 kg heroin, estimated worth  Rs 130 crore in international market, from an alleged drug peddler last week. The police focus is to nab all the suspects in the case to tie the loose ends.