Panaji: An Indian Army soldier, arrested for peddling heroin into Goa, has claimed to have sourced narcotics from the army canteen in Jammu and Kashmir.
Vasu Gaonkar, a native Goan working with the 18 Madras regiment, was arrested in an anti-narcotics raid along with a police constable Kalidas Shetye for trying to peddle 750 gms of heroin. "During interrogation he (Gaonkar) claimed that he used to source heroin from the army canteen during his posting in Jammu and Kashmir. He was in Goa on his annual two month leave and was trying to sell the heroin here," Superintendent of Police V. V. Chaudhury told reporters Saturday.
He said the police are in the process of verifying other information Gaonkar divulged during interrogation. Both the accused have been remanded to seven days police custody. "It's (Jammu and Kashmir) such a sensitive area. If he had access to contraband like heroin in a sanitised army area, there are other questions relating to security which immediately arise," a senior police official told IANS.
