Chandigarh:

A court in Punjab’s Fazilka district sent Congress MLA Sukhpal Singh Khaira to 14-day judicial custody on Saturday in connection with a 2015 drugs case.

Amid tight security arrangements, Sukhpal Khaira was produced in the court in Jalalabad after his two-day police remand ended on Saturday, officials said.

Bholath MLA Sukhpal Khaira was arrested on Thursday from his Chandigarh residence.

He was arrested by the Punjab Police following an investigation conducted by a special investigation team led by Deputy Inspector General of Police Swapan Sharma in the 2015 drugs case.

The case was registered in March 2015 at Jalalabad in Fazilka. Nine people, including Gurdev Singh, who was allegedly a close-aide of Sukhpal Khaira, were booked in the case and later convicted under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

Police had recovered 2 kg of heroin, 24 gold biscuits, one country-made pistol, a .315-bore pistol and two Pakistani SIM cards from them.

Sukhpal Khaira’s cropped up later during the police probe.

However, in 2017, the Supreme Court stayed the trial court proceedings against Sukhpal Khaira who was summoned as an additional accused in the matter. He was arrested by the Enforcement Directorate in 2021 on the charge of money laundering linked to the 2015 drugs case. He was granted bail in 2022.

In February 2023, the Supreme court quashed the summoning order against Sukhpal Khaira in the drugs case.

The Punjab Congress had called the police action against Sukhpal Khaira as political vendetta, a charge vehemently denied by the ruling Aam Aadmi Party. 

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