Drug trafficker who escaped NCB custody arrested in Jalandhar

Jammu Tawi, Sep 10: A drug trafficker, who escaped from the custody of the Jammu Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), has been caught in the neighboring state of Punjab.

The NCB officials, in a statement issued here on Thursday, said that the NCB, in close coordination with the Jammu and Kashmir Police and Punjab Police, had successfully traced and apprehended Aqib Bashir, a resident of Kakaporea, Pulwama district, Kashmir, a notorious drug trafficker who had fled from NCB custody in Jammu.

“A three-day sustained search and tracking operation across J&K and Punjab, along with prompt coordination and intelligence sharing between the J&K Police, Punjab Police and NCB, and strong coordination between Central and State/UT agencies, helped in catching the escaped accused and making the operation successful,” officials said.

Sharing the details, they said that after fleeing from Jammu, the accused reached Jalandhar via Pathankot route.

Initially, after the escape, he attempted to evade detection by taking shelter under the cover of darkness and hiding in a forest area near Narwal Fruit Mandi in Jammu.

“To conceal his identity, he clean-shaved, changed his clothes and altered his appearance, and subsequently used his contacts in Jalandhar to seek shelter and evade the search teams,” they said, adding that continuous intelligence inputs and coordinated field efforts enabled the agencies to track and narrow down his location.

The NCB (Jammu, Amritsar, Chandigarh)-Punjab Police team apprehended him when he was reportedly preparing to move towards Delhi or another State.

“The successful operation reflects the effectiveness of inter-agency coordination, real-time information sharing, sustained efforts and public cooperation,” officials added.

Notably, Aqib Bashir was arrested along with heroin from a passenger bus in Samba district during the intervening night of September 6-7.