Delhi drug bust: Indian man residing in UK nabbed at Amritsar airport, fifth accused to be arrested

Four accused persons were arrested by the Delhi Police till Wednesday in connection with the seizure of drugs worth Rs 5,600 crore.

The Delhi Police on Thursday arrested a 40-year-old UK resident of Indian nationality from the Amritsar airport while he was attempting to leave the country, Delhi Police said.

The man, identified as Jitendra Pal Singh, alias Jassi, had arrived in India to allegedly oversee the drug cartel's operations. He was planning to flee the country following the arrest of four other members but was arrested. Jassi is a UK resident where he has been living for the last 17 years and has a UK Green Card.

The arrest comes following the seizure of over 560 kilograms of cocaine and 40 kilograms of hydroponic marijuana estimated to be worth around Rs 5,620 crore from a godown in south Delhi's Mahipalpur on October 2.

Four persons, including kingpin Tushar Goyal, have already been arrested by the Delhi Police. The other three accused arrested include Himanshu Kumar (27) and Aurangzeb Siddiqui (23) of Delhi and Bharat Kumar Jain (48) of Mumbai.

The drug bust, arguably the biggest in the national capital, triggered a massive political storm after the Bharatiya Janata Party alleged that accused Goyal was linked to the Congress party.

Photographs of Goyal with multiple Congress leaders flooded the social media on Wednesday soon after the arrest. Rajya Sabha MP and BJP spokesperson Sudhanshu Trivedi claimed that Tushar Goyal served as the head of the RTI Cell of the Indian Youth Congress.

The Congress, however, was quick to deny the association. Delhi Congress leader Sandeep Dikshit said Tushar Goyal was sacked by the IYC two years ago and bears no association with him any longer.

The police probe so far has revealed that the four accused planned on selling a large quantity of drugs at concerts, rave parties and high-end localities in Delhi and other metropolitan cities. The police suspects the involvement of at least 12 persons from India and abroad in the international syndicate smuggling banned substances from middle-east countries to India.

A massive manhunt, with several police teams, is currently underway to trace the other members of the group, police said.