The IPS officer in whose home a massive drug bust was undertaken by the Narcotics Control Bureau on Saturday, 11 May has claimed that he did not get the mandatory verification done, reported The Indian Express.
Nigerian nationals Henry Ideofor and Chimando Okora were arrested on Saturday, 11 May.
The IPS officer has been identified as Devendra PN Pandey who is posted as a SP in the Economic Offences Wing of UP Police, stated Indian Express.
Speaking to Indian Express, Pandey had said, “It is the duty of the property dealer to get police verification done. I gave all documents needed for police verification to the dealer but he did not get it done. Also, he never told me that police verification was not done. He gave me the impression that all formalities were completed.”
“I rented my house through a local property dealer, Gaurav, around three years ago. The rent was Rs 24,000 a month. For the last one year, the tenant was not paying the rent regularly. The tenant also stopped paying the electricity bill. In October last year, I sent a notice to the tenant asking to deposit pending dues and vacate the house at the earliest.”
The broker Gaurav Sharma told Indian Express that the tenant verification was done in 2015. He claimed the house was rented out to two men in 2015 and that he had got tenant verification done from local police.
He said he could not recall the police station where the same was done.
“The tenants got my number from their friends living on rent nearby. I did get their verification done from local police, but not from FRRO (Foreigners Regional Registration Office) because I thought this service was not available then. It is possible that I might or might not have told the owner that I got the tenants verified from local police," he told the daily.
SP (Rural) Gautam Budh Nagar Vineet Jaiswal however said that the tenant verification had not been done.
According to the NCB, it was the “biggest ever seizure of pseudoephedrine outside factory premises”. They had also managed to seize over 1,818 kg of pseudoephedrine and 1.9 kg of cocaine from the house.
Meanwhile, the Noida Police is going to continue their investigation about how such an enormous amount of drugs could be stored in the house and why the tenant verification was not done.
(With inputs from Indian Express)
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