Tribune News Service Ludhiana March 2 The Ludhiana police claimed to have attached the property of a city-based drug peddler worth Rs41.79 lakh. Orders in this regard were received by the police via email from the Ministry of Finance and Department of Revenue office of Competent Authority and the Administrator New Delhi. Additional DCP (Investigation) Rupinder Kaur Bhatti told The Tribune that in the year 2014 the police station No. 5 had arrested Deepak Soni of New Patel Nagar Haibowal Kalan and Manish Kumar of Haqiqat Nagar Haibowal and recovered 120 bottles of banned cough syrups and 150 gm of intoxicating powder from them. She said in 2015 the peddlers were convicted in the case and sentenced to 10 years of imprisonment. As the recovered quantity came under the commercial quantity level the then SHO had conducted financial investigations into the illegally acquired properties by the smuggler Deepak Soni. The SHO being the competent authority had also passed freezing order on the property. The ADCP said the property (residential building in New Patel Nagar) was procured by the smuggler in the name of his mother Suman Bhalla in 2011 from the proceeds of the drug money. The process to attach the property was started in February and on March 1 the police got the attachment order. The competent authority in Delhi had also served notice to the affected party this February to produce its viewpoint about the attachment of the property. Hari Govind competent authority and administrator Smuggling and Foreign Exchange Manipulation (Forfieture of Property) Act in an order issued (copy with The Tribune) confirmed the freezing order issued by the SHO police station No. 5 and said the property shall not be transferred or dealt with any manner except with the prior permission of the authority. The copy of the orders has been sent to the revenue officer tehsildar sub-registrar for immediate implementation. The Police Commissioner Rakesh Agrawal had recently said that the process to attach the property worth Rs87 lakh of eight drug smugglers had also started.

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