Guwahati, April 6: Delhi police are on a trail of a gang run by Manipur-based rebel outfit Kangleipak Communist Party (KCP), which is involved in smuggling of precursor chemicals needed to produce party drugs from the national capital to Myanmar via the Northeast.
An official source said this gang is involved in largescale smuggling of “controlled chemicals” such as ephedrine, pseudoephedrin and cathine, from Delhi to the Northeast, from where it is illegally exported to clandestine laboratories in Myanmar to make party drugs such as Speed, Ecstasy and Ice.
The manufacturing and consuming of these controlled chemicals, which are high-degree stimulants, is banned in most of the countries but in India these can be manufactured and sold under licence for medical use.
“The smuggling of precursor chemicals to Myanmar is highly lucrative because party drugs have a demand in the international market. These drugs are produced in underground labs in Myanmar and are mainly smuggled into China and Thailand,” he said.
According to him, two factions of the KCP — Military Council and Mobile Task Force — are involved in trafficking of narcotic substances with the help of their gang members in Delhi.
“Several lakhs of rupees, which they earn from the illegal drug trade, is used to fund the outfit’s separatist and subversive activities,” the source said.
Delhi police are also on the trail of a few persons from Manipur, including some KCP cadres, who are suspected to be members of the drug ring after the arrest of two members of the gang, Deepak Rastogi alias Deepak and Gurbachan Singh alias Bobby, in New Delhi last month.
The duo were found with 150kg ephedrine and 18,000 strips of Actifed tablets, which contain pseudoephedrine.
During interrogation, the accused revealed that they were running this illegal business with their associates in Manipur.
According to the duo, the consignment was to be sent to Manipur and from there it would have been sent to Myanmar and China to prepare party drugs, which would be sold at rave parties at a very high price.
They had procured the psychotropic drugs from their contacts in Delhi and Meerut.
Delhi police, with the help of other law enforcement agencies, are now trying to track down the other members of the gang, including those based in Manipur.
The source said the National Investigation Agency (NIA) has registered as case (number 03/2011) against KCP at its Guwahati branch in November last year and is probing the activities of the outfit.
An NIA source said the outfit is collecting money from contractors of various government departments, businessmen, transporters, and even from sitting MLAs in Manipur.
“They used to invest the money in the illicit drug trade and raised huge funds from the illegal drug trade,” he added.
