CHANDIGARH: Almost three years after going on the run, the dismissed Assistant Inspector General of Police Raj Jit Singh Hundal has been arrested by his own Punjab Police as he had been on the run and absconding for three years after being booked in cases linked to a police-drug trafficker nexus and extortion racket.
Confirming that Police Raj Jit Singh Hundal has been arrested, Punjab DGP Gaurav Yadav told this newspaper that the alleged accused Hundal, who has been dismissed from service and is a proclaimed offender (PO) in FIR No. 1/17 of Police Station Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) under Sections 59(2)(b), 21 and 22 of the NDPS Act, Sections 218, 466, 471, 384, 409, 482 and 120-B of the IPC, and Section 25 of the Arms Act; FIR No. 138/23 of PS ANTF under Sections 7 and 13 of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988 and Section 59 of the NDPS Act; and FIR No. 15/23 of the Vigilance Bureau under Section 13(1)(b) read with Section 13(2) of the Prevention of Corruption Act, 1988, has been apprehended this morning by an ANTF team.
"Hundal was apprehended from House Number 225/2, Darshan Singh Nagar, Patiala, under Police Station Anaj Mandi. The house owner is Sukhwinder Kaur, wife of Gurdev Singh. Singh was arrested following continuous, highly technical and financial investigation by the ANTF team," he said and added that his remand will be sought from the competent court in all cases for investigation of the cases.
About a week ago, Hundal had offered to surrender before the Supreme Court as he had filed a Special Leave Petition in the apex court, through which he has challenged a July 20 order of the Punjab and Haryana High Court and has also sought the transfer of the case registered against him from the Punjab Police to another investigating agency, alleging that he would not receive a fair investigation from the state police.
According to the Supreme Court's September 10 order, a bench comprising Justices MM Sundresh and Augustine George Masih was informed by senior counsel appearing for Hundal that the petitioner was willing to surrender. The bench adjourned the matter and directed him to surrender in the meantime. The matter has now been listed for October 1. The court had also granted him liberty to file an appropriate application after surrender.
Hundal has been absconding since April 2023 and has been facing criminal proceedings in a case arising from allegations concerning his alleged association with dismissed Punjab Police Inspector Inderjit Singh and the handling of drug-related cases during their postings in the state. On April 17, 2023, the Punjab government dismissed Hundal from service following proceedings based on the findings of three Special Investigation Teams (SITs) constituted in compliance with orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court.
The High Court had, on March 28, opened three out of the four sealed-cover reports submitted by the SIT and had asked the Punjab government to take further action on these reports.
Hundal's troubles trace back to his time as SSP of Tarn Taran and later Moga, when he supervised Inspector Inderjit Singh, who was dismissed from the force in 2017 after being accused of running a racket that smuggled drugs from Pakistan, siphoned off recovered narcotics for resale, and planted drugs on innocent people to extort money.
A Punjab and Haryana High Court PIL on the drug menace led to a three-member SIT, headed by then-DGP Siddharth Chattopadhyaya, being formed in December 2017 to examine Inderjit's conduct and Singh's alleged complicity in it.
The case against Singh was registered by then Additional DGP Harpreet Singh Sidhu, who headed the Special Task Force (STF) on drugs of Punjab Police. It was the STF under Sidhu that registered the first FIR against Inderjit Singh for drug smuggling and tampering with recoveries, the case in which Raj Jit Singh Hundal was later named a co-accused. Notably, Singh had specifically sought an SIT probe barring Sidhu, asking the court for an independent inquiry by any officer other than the STF chief—a request that itself became part of the record.
Sidhu's findings, folded into the SIT's report, went further than the corruption angle: he stated that it was necessary to investigate Singh, Inderjit Singh and their associates for using individuals and companies to invest the proceeds of crime, both in India and abroad—effectively flagging a money-laundering dimension to the case well before the ED's own probe took shape.
The dismissal order alleged that Raj Jit, while serving as Senior Superintendent of Police of Tarn Taran, had patronised Inderjit, who was subsequently dismissed from the police force.
According to the government order issued in 2023, the SIT reports concluded that there was alleged complicity between Hundal and Inderjit and alleged collusion with drug smugglers. It added that during the tenure of Hundal as Tarn Taran SSP and Inderjit Singh as CIA in-charge, more than 50 samples in NDPS cases failed, which shows that the two did not leave any stone unturned to hijack the government machinery to fulfil their vested interests. "Hundal abused his official position to shield the drug peddlers/smugglers from the clutches of law, implicated innocent persons in false drug cases and also managed to scuttle the investigations in the FIRs registered against Inderjit Singh," the orders had stated.
He went underground after the Punjab and Haryana High Court rejected his bail plea. A lookout circular was also issued against him as agencies continued efforts to trace him.
The arrest of Hundal comes ahead of the 2027 Punjab Assembly elections, with the AAP government highlighting its action against drug abuse in the state. The opposition parties have repeatedly questioned the delay in arresting Singh, alleging that the government had failed to act against senior-level figures allegedly linked to the drug trade.
In May 2023, the Directorate of Enforcement (ED) had sought details from the Punjab Vigilance Bureau pertaining to the corruption case registered against Hundal. The Punjab Vigilance Bureau had, on April 20, 2023, registered a case under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the dismissed AIG for allegedly owning assets more than his known sources of income. The FIR was registered based on the SIT reports pointing to Hundal's close connections with Inspector Inderjit Singh, who was also dismissed from service for his involvement in a drug racket.
The ED has also requested the Vigilance Bureau to share the dismissed AIG's bank details and three reports submitted by the three-member Special Investigation Team (SIT) headed by former DGP Siddharth Chattopadhaya to the Punjab and Haryana High Court in 2018.
Hundal, who was then posted as AIG, Headquarters (NRI), at the Punjab Police headquarters in Chandigarh, had been on the run since April 17, 2023, when Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann had ordered his dismissal from service and registration of cases against him as per law to carry out further detailed investigation.
Following the CM's orders, the ANTF had not only nominated him in an already registered FIR against dismissed Inspector Inderjit Singh in June 2017 at Mohali, but had also issued a lookout circular (LOC) against the tainted officer to stop him from fleeing abroad.