'Police planted Vijender's car outside drug peddler's flat'

The drug scandal implicating Vijender Singh took a new twist on Tuesday with fellow-boxer and Asian Games silver medallist Dinesh Kumar claiming that the Punjab police planted the star pugilist's car outside the flat from where heroin worth Rs 130 crore was recovered last month.

The recovery of the car, registered in the name of Vijender's wife, outside the Zirakpur flat, led to the boxer's name cropping up in the scandal.

Vijender was further implicated when his sparring partner Ram Singh and the drug racket's alleged kingpin, Anoop Singh Kahlon, named him as a consumer.

But Dinesh said the police at Fatehgarh Sahib planted the car outside the flat.

"Ram got a call from Fatehgarh Sahib Police that he would have to come for questioning. He was at NIS Patiala with us on that day. Me and a fellow boxer Bunty accompanied him in the car which the police claim was found outside the flat," Dinesh said over phone.

"When we reached Fatehgarh Sahib, the police told us that Ram would have to be questioned. Me and Bunty then decided to go out for a while and we intended to come back to pick Ram but the policemen insisted that we leave the car at the station only," he recalled.

"We objected to it and told them that the car is not ours and had to be taken back to Patiala but they forced us to leave the car at the station and told us to go back. We remained in Fatehgarh Sahib till the evening because we wanted to take the car back but the police did not allow that," he said.

Dinesh said after failing to retrieve the car, they headed back to Patiala only to find out later that the vehicle had been found in Zirakpur.

"We were stunned because the car was in police custody when we left. How it reached Zirakpur is a mystery to us," said the light-heavyweight boxer.

Asked why he did not reveal these details when the controversy initially broke, Dinesh said, "We were scared given that Ram is still in police detention and the way Vijender is being maligned."

Vijender has been accused by the Punjab police of taking heroin 12 times. Interestingly, the cops haven’t conducted any test on the boxer due to his refusal to give hair and blood samples.

"People at NIS know that the car was in the campus and the police planted it in Zirakpur. I have spoken to Viju a few times; he is very low because he is innocent and is being maligned in the media," he said.