Punjab: Drug racket kingpin Bhola out of jail after 11 years
Sacked Punjab Police deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Jagdish Bhola, a kingpin of a drug racket busted in 2013, was released from the high-security Bathinda central prison on Sunday. Jail superintendent Manjit Singh Sidhu said Bhola was released at around 4 pm after completing the formalities.
The Punjab and Haryana high court had granted him bail on May 21. An accused under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, Bhola got bail after spending 11 years in jail. Among other points, the court reportedly took into consideration his prolonged incarceration and the remote possibility of an early disposal of appeals.
Bhola, an alleged kingpin of the ₹6,000-crore drug racket, has been convicted in two cases while some more criminal cases are pending against him. A native of Raike Kalan village in Bathinda, Bhola, once a celebrated wrestler and recipient of the Arjuna Award, was dismissed from the police force in 2012 after the recovery of poppy husk. He was arrested by Punjab Police in November 2013 in connection with the ₹700-crore drug racket. The ED arrested him in 2014 and filed six chargesheets till 2017.
Bhola is facing several FIRs in Patiala, Fatehgarh Sahib and Mohali. His last conviction was in July 2024 when a Mohali court convicted and sentenced him to 10-year rigorous imprisonment in a drug-linked money-laundering case.
An Enforcement Directorate (ED) case was also an offshoot of a drug case, in which a probe was launched immediately after the racket was busted in 2013. Appeals against all the cases are pending before the high court.
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