Suspicious glitter: Pathankot jewellers under probe agencies' lens

PATHANKOT: When Gurdaspur SP Salwinder Singh disclosed the presence of a jeweller “friend” in his vehicle on the night of December 31 — hours before the Pathankot airbase attackers “abducted” the duo along with Singh’s cook — it led to raised eyebrows. But what surprises even more is the proliferation of jewellers in a small district like Pathankot, which doesn’t have any big industry or avenues to attract investment.

Here are the numbers: there are nearly 450 jewellers in the entire district with a population of 6.5 lakh.

Pathankot city alone — with a population of around 2 lakh — has over 200 jewellers. The popular Androon Bazaar (inner market) of Pathankot city has over 100 jewellery shops.

The Pathankot Vikas Manch — a local organisation — lists over 70 jewellers in its official diary.
There are now questions on whether alleged ill-gotten money earned through drug-peddling is being used to purchase jewellery, and if gold is being used as a currency to pay off alleged drug consignments.

The presence of so many jewellers, as an aftermath of Rajesh Verma’s association with Salwinder Singh on the fateful night, has come under the focus of locals and ostensibly the intelligence agencies for the first time.

Verma is a jeweller from Gurdaspur, nearly 45 km from Pathankot. He was accompanying the SP and his cook on the night of December 31 when the trio was abducted by terrorists, who attacked the Pathankot airbase the next day. The three were travelling in the officer’s vehicle. While Salwinder Singh was freed without any harm, Verma’s throat was slit, but he survived.

While some locals attribute the “unusual” number of jewellers to frequent purchases by people from adjoining areas of Himachal Pradesh and Jammu & Kashmir, others suspect involvement of small-time jewellers in facilitating safe parking of alleged ill-gotten money earned through drug-peddling.

As suspicion grows about the existence of “sleeper cells” and questions are raised on safe harbours for drug peddlers and infiltrators, locals contend that investigating agencies will have to dig deeper to probe whether any of the jewellers are a wilful party to this.

Former director-general of police (prisons), Punjab, Shashi Kant smells a rat. “It is certainly unusual that such a large number of jeweller shops exist in a place which is said to have sleeper cells. There certainly appears to be a clear nexus of people who dump the consignments for a cooling-off period,” Shashi Kant told ET. He added that drug smuggling is not possible without the “active involvement” of locals, who are well-entrenched.

GOLD AS CURRENCY? Another senior cop said on the condition of anonymity, “It needs to be looked into as to whether gold is being used as currency to collect drug consignments.” Compared with cash, jewellery is easier to carry and exchange, he added.

Ask jewellers and they dismiss the suspicion explaining that the district is a “stopover” for people coming from villages like Kathua in Jammu & Kashmir and Chamba in Himachal Pradesh to purchase ornaments. “Since these villagers do not have any significant jewellery market in their areas and Pathankot is within a distance of 25-30 km, they prefer coming here,” said a leading jeweller, refusing to be identified. Also, he added, for a majority the profession has been continuing as a “legacy”.

For long, Punjab and Mumbai have remained an easy gateway for jewellery smuggling across the border. However, drugs overshadowed jewellery after the price of gold began to stabilise internationally post-1980s. Top cops of Punjab Police describe this “transition” as “conversion from gold to white (drugs)”.

Elaborating, a retired top cop requesting anonymity told ET, “Thanks to the riverine areas, smuggling of gold had become a convenient way to earn easy and quick money.

As a result, several people came and settled in areas like Pathankot and Gurdaspur. And with drug smuggling turning out to be more lucrative, the same set of individuals became more active and seemingly organised.”

When contacted by ET, a senior Punjab Police official said, “Any such incident (of a nexus) involving a jeweller with an anti-social element has not yet come to light of the authorities.” However, after the recent attacks, he added, “Nothing can be rejected outright.”