A boxer’s feints
Arrows of guilt that for now Vijender dodges easily
A boxer’s feints
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Punjab Police’s record has been dodgy when it comes to seizure of heroin. The Punjab Police website actually shows a solitary haul of heroin, all of 100 grams, in August 2010. And this in a state groaning under rampant drug abuse, where 739 addicts and peddlers were arrested in Jalandhar alone during the last seven months and where the BSF and the Narcotics Control Bureau claim to have seized no less than 200 kg of the opium-based drug in 2012.
Busting a heroin smuggling racket and seizure of heroin worth Rs 438 crore last month was, therefore, extraordinary. It involved Canada-based Anoop Singh Kahlon and his associates in UK, Meerut, Jalandhar and Ludhiana. Most are former cops.
Selective leaks on the involvement of Vijender Singh and his sparring partner, Ram Singh (who was arrested on April 3 for questioning after days of ‘custody’), have raised questions. While the police was quick to claim in a press release that Kahlon had described the boxers as his ‘clients’, no other detail of Kahlon’s confession was shared.
The police, in all fairness, has been saying that it has no evidence of the boxer’s role in smuggling heroin, and nor did they uncover a culpable money trail that linked Vijender. While his car may have been used for transporting heroin by Kahlon, there is no evidence that the boxer knew about it.
Vijender may be guilty of nothing more serious than consuming illegal drugs, if at all. But his image has taken a smack, and sections of the media are looking askance.