Rs 1cr LSD seizure: 4 arrested Himachal cops dismissed from service

Kullu: Himachal Pradesh Police have dismissed four personnel of its anti-drug special task force (STF) after they were arrested for alleged involvement in a case involving the smuggling of the banned narcotic LSD, said an official on Sunday.A police spokesperson said constables Nitesh and Ashok, and head constables Rajesh Kumar and Sameer Kumar, were dismissed from service under the provisions of the Himachal Pradesh Police Act, with immediate effect. All of them were posted with the STF in Kullu.The four personnel were arrested on Thursday, after their names surfaced during am ongoing investigation into an LSD smuggling case in which Shimla police arrested Sandeep Sharma, a resident of Moga in Punjab, and Priya Sharma, a resident of Sirmaur, and seized 562 stamps of LSD weighing 11.6 gm each and having a market value of Rs 1 crore.According to police officers, the supplier of LSD was identified as Neville Harrison from Kerala and was arrested in Gurgaon on March 13. The officers said during the investigation, it was found that the four accused STF cops intercepted Harrison in Bhuntar near Kullu on March 10 and seized 1,450 stamps of LSD from him.But instead of booking him, the cops stole 834 LSD stamps, gave the remaining 616 stamps back to Harrison and let him walk free, officers said. According to the police spokesperson, with these four dismissals, the number of sacked cops in recent drug-related cases has reached 21 in the state under the anti-chitta campaign.