PIONEER NEWS SERVICE/Dehradun
Uttarakhand Police have busted a multi-state MDMA drug manufacturing network operating from Pithoragarh and Champawat districts, with supply chains extending to Maharashtra and Nepal. The Special Task Force (STF) arrested Kunal Ram Kohli, the alleged mastermind, in Nanakmatta, Udham Singh Nagar district on Monday and recovered banned precursor chemicals along with processed methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA).
The director general of police Deepam Seth said this while addressing the media on Tuesday. He said that the Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) of STF, along with Nanakmatta police, arrested Kohli near Sahni Nursery Tiraha. The joint team seized 7.41 grammes of MDMA, 126 litres of liquid chemicals and 28 kilogrammes of solid precursor material used for manufacturing the drug. Kohli was already wanted in NDPS cases in Thane and Banbasa, he added. Seth said that the case began on May 31 when Thane Police arrested two men with 11 grammes of MDMA. They revealed that Monu Gupta and Kunal Kohli had set up a drug lab near the Nepal border in Thal area, Pithoragarh district.
The DGP said, “On June 26, Pithoragarh police and STF teams raided a poultry farm in Thal used to manufacture MDMA under the guise of a livestock business. They seized chemicals but made no arrests.Earlier in June, Mumbai Police arrested Monu Gupta, Bhim Yadav and Aman Kohli near the Paliya Nepal border. Kohli fled to Nepal with his associates Rahul and Vikram. On July 11, Champawat police arrested Rahul’s wife, Isha, with 5.6 kilogrammes of MDMA, followed by Rahul’s arrest. Kohli and his team sourced chemicals illegally from Varanasi, Ghaziabad and Thane. Initially, the group ran a lab in Varanasi but moved operations to Tanakpur in Champawat after a police crackdown. They later rented a poultry farm in Suwalekh, Pithoragarh and used it to manufacture 5.6 kilogrammes of MDMA, which they stored at Rahul’s house in Banbasa.” Seth said that after Rahul’s wife was arrested, Kohli returned to Nanakmatta to dump the remaining chemicals but police caught him.
The STF senior superintendent of police Navneet Singh Bhullar said that the seized chemicals were sufficient to produce another six kilogrammes of MDMA, worth around Rs 12 crore in the international market. He informed that the police recovered 57.5 litres of dichloromethane, 20 litres of acetone, 47.5 litres of hydrochloric acid, 0.5 litres of methylamine and 28 kilogrammes of sodium hydroxide, all used in the drug’s synthesis. Bhullar said, “In his statement, Kohli said he met Monu Gupta and Bhim Yadav in Mumbai and later sheltered them in Tanakpur while they evaded arrest in another NDPS case. The group later shifted operations to remote areas in Pithoragarh, believing Uttarakhand offered a discreet environment for illegal drug manufacturing.
The police are investigating the financial network behind the operation. Authorities are attaching assets under the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PIT-NDPS) Act and tracing all properties purchased with drug money,” he said. The DGP further informed that the police have identified 44 industrial units across the State using such chemicals and are inspecting 172 pharma companies for potential misuse of schedule-H prescription drugs. He also announced Rs one lakh reward for the team involved in the arrest and seizure.
