Cops get suspended after a drug case escaped from a Govt. hospital in Maharashtra’s Pune city.
Lalit Patil, the accused who was in jail for about a year, was in the hospital where he got access to a mobile phone, as said by a police official on Tuesday. While he was undergoing treatment, he still was peddling drugs and got named in a new drug case three days ago. 10 teams have been formed by the police to nab him.
He was in Yerwada jail, while undergoing treatment at the Sassoon general hospital in the city for the last three months. While being taken for X-ray imaging, he escaped the hospital premises on Monday evening.
Following which 5 police were suspended for negligence in vigilance, as the other four were suspended as accused, as Patil was found to be using a mobile phone while being in the hospital under surveillance, said by an official.
A man named Subhash Mandal was held by Pune police’s Anti-Narcotics Cell outside the Sassoon hospital with two kilograms of mephedrone worth Rs 2 crore on 30th September. Mandal disclosed to the police that he got the drugs from Patil through an employee at the hospital’s canteen named Rauf Shaikh.
After which Mandal, Shaikh and Patil were booked under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and Indian Penal Code provisions in a case registered at Bundgarden police station.
The State government has created a four-member team to investigate Patils’s escape, headed by Dr. Dilip Mhaisekar, director of the Directorate of Medical Education and Research, other team members including Solapur Government Medical College’s dean Dr. Sudhir Deshmukh, Nanded Government Medical College professor Dr. Hemant Godbole, and Dr. Eknath Pawar from Mumbai’s Grant Medical College Professor.
The committee was formed after a probe against Dada Bhuse, the minister of ports, by Shiv Sena and the Congress, who alleged Bhuse’s role in Patil’s escape. The allegations were repudiated by Bhuse afterwards.
Bhushan Patil who is Lalit’s brother and one Abhishek Balkwade were arrested from near Nepal Border in connection with the case by a special Task Force from Uttar Pradesh Police, along with the Crime Branch team from Pune.
The court was informed that they had CCTV footage illustrating how Bhushan and Ballakwade together ran a mephedrone manufacturing unit in Nashik, raided recently by Mumbai Police, which resulted in seizing 150 kg of mephedrone and raw materials.
Existence of Drug Cartel : Tushar Kale allegedly linked to Chhota Rajan gang and was in Kolhapur prison, got into contact with a Nigerian National named Zuby Odaka while lodged in Jail. After getting a bail, they acquired the full process of manufacturing mephedrone from a racketeer incarcerated in Mumbai prison. Many accused in the case including Rakesh Khaniwadekar, who assisted Kale and others in acquiring a farmhouse where they manufactured mephedrone for the first time. Also Arvindkumar Lohare, who’s a postgraduate degree holder in organic chemistry who was facing charges of drug manufacturing in a case registered in Nashik.
They afterwards moved to a closed chemical factory in Ranjangaon. 132 kilograms of the drug were synthesized. Within three months, the police arrested 17 more individuals for involvement with the case. The officials got hold of 25 lakh Rs in cash from Patil during his arrest on 10th December, 2020.
It is being suspected by Pune Police that Patil might’ve crossed the border into Nepal.
