Former international wrestler and Arjuna awardee Jagdish Bhola was on Wednesday convicted by a CBI court in Mohali in a multi-crore drugs racket, busted by the Punjab Police in 2013.
Bhola had served as Punjab's Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) but was dismissed from service in 2012 after his links with the drugs racket were revealed.
The Punjab Police had arrested Bhola in November 2013 in connection with a Rs. 700-crore drugs racket.
Subsequent police action against the drug mafia led to the busting of a Rs. 6,000-crore drugs racket.
Bhola and other 49 accused were produced in the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) court for the verdict in the case on Wednesday and several of them were convicted.
Bhola was the kingpin of the drug network which was diverting precursor chemicals for medicinal purposes to illegal factories in Himachal Pradesh that manufactured synthetic drugs like 'Ice' and was supplying the synthetic drugs to the international market in Europe, Canada and the United States.