Drug peddler caught after two year chase

Unlike his earlier filmi escape from the custody of the Rajasthan police, fugitive inter-state drug trafficker Arjunram Garg’s arrest from Bandra terminus on Monday was less dramatic.

The arrest was effected by the railway police after a Jodhpur Rural police constable, Mangilal, approached them saying he had specific information that Garg, 25, was at the terminus.

Senior inspector Ashok Survegandh of the Bandra railway police station said, “We formed a team of 10 railway policemen in civilian clothes to search the entire terminus. Barely 20 minutes had passed when Mangilal pointed out a man as Garg. We caught him while he was trying to escape. On questioning, he confessed he was Arjunram Garg.”

Garg escaped from the Jodhpur police in a scene reminiscent of an action-packed Hindi film. Recounting the event, Mangilal said, “On July 24, 2007, Garg was brought to a first-class judicial magistrate’s court at Oshia, 65km from Jodhpur prison, by two armed policemen for his trial.”

After the court proceedings got over, Garg was being taken back to Jodhpur prison in a Rajasthan State Road Transport Corporation (RSRTC) bus when a jeep waylaid the bus barely 5km from Jodhpur. “The driver stopped the bus,” said Mangilal, “and before he could understand what was happening, seven people carrying swords alighted from the jeep and entered the bus.”

The policemen escorting Garg — Nad Singh and Bhopal Singh — tried to put up a fight, but they were overpowered, and Garg made his getaway in the waiting jeep.

Garg used to bring opium from neighbouring Madhya Pradesh and supplying it to small-time drug peddlers all over Rajasthan.