KOLKATA/CHENNAI: The National Investigation Agency (NIA), probing the October 2 Burdwan blasts, is looking for a “drug queen” from Kolkata, now reportedly based in Chennai. Gulshan Bibi, who fled to Chennai years ago, still runs, through remote control, the narcotics business and sleuths have found connections between her and Islamic terrorists, said NIA sources. However, the police in Chennai have no clue about the drug queen. When contacted, a senior police officer plainly said the name did not ring a bell. Official sources in the Chennai branch of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) too said no drug smuggler or peddler by the name of Gulshan Bibi had figured in their radar so far.
But NIA sources in Kolkata said Gulshan provided shelter to two Jamaat-ul-Mujahideen (JUMB) terrorists, who visited Chennai before the May 1 blasts at the Central railway station. Sources said she conducted rave parties in resorts at Mahabalipuram on the East Coast Road. Besides young men and women working in various call centres, BPOs and KPOs, her clientele reportedly included members of the film industry. Apart from marijuana, hashish and heroin, she was also able to procure drugs from abroad like crack cocaine.
Chennai police, when asked if they had received any request from the NIA to locate Gulshan, said the local police would assist NIA personnel only in escorting duty and in logistics.
“They will seek help to keep the suspects in custody as and when required and we would provide such facilities to them,” an officer noted. “They won’t seek our assistance in tracing or locating the suspects.”
Gulshan, now aged 55, fled Kolkata during the former Left Front regime when a section of CPM workers floated an anti-drug forum and started a crusade against her though one section of Marxists connived with her. As she sold the drugs much below their market price, her name spread like wildfire among addicts in Bengal.
On August 12, 1993, Uttam Mondal, a CPM worker protested the presence of a narcotics den in an Urdu medium school in Dakshindari in eastern Kolkata. Mondal, who used to tutor poor students, was brutally killed for taking on the drug mafia. Gulshan was arrested but due to the intervention of a CPM minister, went scot free. With the NCB and the Kolkata police hot on her trail, she shifted to Chennai. With money power growing, she could reportedly bribe police not only in Tamil Nadu and West Bengal but also states along the Kolkata-Chennai train route.
The terrorists took advantage of her connections with corrupt officials of the NCB and police. With her help, they allegedly found safe havens not only in Kolkata and Chennai but also in other southern cities.