Chandigarh, Jan 8 (IANS): During a follow-up investigation in a 19-kg heroin recovery case, Punjab Police on Monday arrested three more members of the Mannu Mahawa cartel and recovered an additional 3.5 kg of heroin, taking the total recovery to 22.5 kg in this case.

Director General of Police (DGP), Gaurav Yadav, has identified the arrested persons as Balraj Singh, Anmol Singh and Sarabjit Singh.

With the arrest of the three, the total number of people held by the police so far has reached 10, he added.

He said apart from recovering heroin, police teams have also recovered 10 cartridges of .30 bore and nine cartridges of 9 MM along with one Safari car from their possession.

The development came a little over a week after the Commissionerate Police Amritsar had busted a cross-border drug and arms smuggling racket being operated by US-based smuggler Manpreet, alias Mannu Mahawa.

The police arrested two key persons and recovered 19kg of heroin, Rs 23 lakh drug money, seven pistols including one 9 mm Glock and drone parts.

Sharing more details, Commissioner of Police (CP), Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, said that following inputs that wanted accused Anmol Singh and his accomplices were spotted in Sultanwind area, police teams of CIA Staff-3 under supervision of DCP Harpreet Singh Mandher, ADCP CITY-3 Abhimanyu Rana, ACP Sarabjit Singh Bajwa arrested three accused.

He said that as per preliminary investigations, the accused were directly in touch with Pakistan-based smuggler Shah and US-based Manu Mahawa, and were supplying drugs, arms and ammunition across the state after smuggling from Pakistan via drones. This consignment was also sent by Pakistan-based smugglers, he added.