A sub-divisional court in Mohali on Wednesday, denied the district police any further custody of the four Nigerian nationals arrested recently with 500 grams of heroin worth Rs 1 crore.

Turning down the prosecution’s plea to extend the police remand of Alexander, Pal, Alex and Oko Fabio, Sub-Divisional Judicial Magistrate (SDJM) Lalit Kumar Singla instead remanded them to judicial custody for 14 days.

With this, the police investigation has come to a naught without even making any headway in the case. Neither have the antecedents of the arrested Nigerians been verified, nor have their credentials, links and modus operandi been ascertained.

Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) in-charge Sub-Inspector Gurwinder Singh argued before court that in the absence of any reply from the Nigerian Embassy and recovery of passports or any other valid documents from the alleged drug peddlers, it was yet to be established whether the accused were staying in India legally or illegally.

“If the Nigerians are found staying illegally in the country, another case under relevant sections of the Foreigners’ Act would have been slapped on them,” Singh submitted before the court.

Singh averred that the language problem forced the investigation agency to send the alleged drug peddlers to a specialised centre of the Punjab Police for two days. Nothing much could, however, be retrieved from them, said Singh, adding that for most questions of the police, the youths had a standard reply, “We don’t understand your language. We don’t know.”

The CIA in-charge added that the department was also working to establish the links of the youth to a possible international nexus.