NEW TWIST: Bhalla (centre)

Just when Delhi's glam circuit had begun to breathe easy, there was a fresh twist to the Coke Tale last week. Men of Delhi Police's Special Cell apprehended Rajesh Bhalla a.k.a. Tutu, 49, a high-end fashion garments exporter, who had been absconding for nearly six months. Bhalla, one of two users to have paid Ali by cheques, had been declared a proclaimed offender (po) by a Delhi court. He was on the run since August 25, 2001, the day Afghan peddler Ali Naqibullah, hotelier Neeraj Wadera and a couple of African couriers of the Colombian-origin white powder were arrested ("Coke Tales", September 10, 2001). He was also in a long line of high society snorters Ali had named.

Ali had claimed that Bhalla paid him by cheque in return for a regular supply of cocaine between June and August 2001. The other user who issued cheques, businessman Robert Suri, has fled the country. Suri, who holds a British passport, is now a po with lookout circulars against his name at all major airports. Investigators have traced some of Bhalla's cheques to the New Delhi South Extension-I branch of hsbc. Two self cheques of Rs 20,000 each, with Ali's signature at the back, had been debited from Bhalla's account (No. 051790202 006). In police custody, Bhalla admitted to having paid for the cocaine at least a dozen times. Ali and he, Bhalla said, had snorted together on about 30 occasions, sometimes at his 20-acre farm at Taru, Gurgaon, but usually at a flat in Vasant Enclave. "He would wake me up at nine in the morning on his way back from an all night rave, and we would regularly 'do lines'," Bhalla told india today.

The garment exporter and the cocaine dealer met by chance at My Kind of Place, one of Delhi's most happening-and once "snowing"-discos, in June 2001. In a cloak room there, Ali had introduced Bhalla to the pleasures of coke. Bhalla, a self-confessed heroin and hashish addict for 20 years ("I have been chasing smack four to five times a day," he says), has walked in and out of deaddiction centres more times than he cares to remember. The two had a curious association-Ali, the early morning visitor, needed to finish his stock; Bhalla wanted to stay high all the time and didn't mind paying Ali through the nose for the fix. Ali was charging Bhalla an astounding Rs 4,500 a gram. Even in the murky world of cocaine dealings, this was a bit unfair; others bought Ali's coke at about half the rate.

OLD SINS: Peddler Ali often snorted coke with Bhalla at his farmhouse in Gurgaon

Since the August 25, 2001 arrest of Ali and the others, there have been other crucial developments. Wadera got bail on October 23, 2001. Police arrested one of Ali's closest allies in the business, Mohit Sharma a.k.a. Sona, on October 19, 2001, and he stayed in jail till February 12. He gave graphic accounts of various snorting groups and their habits-providing in the process such specifics as who hung out with whom and where to "do lines". An interesting portion in Sona's confessions describes a group from Mumbai, including some of the film world's prettiest faces and most macho figures.

Bhalla's arrest is significant. Says acp Rajbir Singh, who has handled the case with sensitivity: "Bhalla was important for our investigations. He paid Ali for the coke and we have proof, and this is important evidence in the case." His disclosures, supported by those of Sona, Wadera, and Ali, might prompt the questioning of some celebrities.
For the glam circuit, that's unwelcome news.