MUMBAI: In a bid to halt the activities of a city-based alleged habitual narcotics offender, the Mumbai unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Wednesday arrested him from his Mulund residence and put him in preventive detention at Taloja Central Jail till the end of the year in accordance with the provisions of the Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (PIT-NDPS) Act. He was taken into preventive detention in compliance of a May 14 order issued by the joint secretary, PIT-NDPS Division.NCB places habitual narcotics offender in prevention detention to curb drug-traffickingReferred to informally as a “scientist” by his peers in a nod to his technical prowess, Rahul Shedge, a post-graduate in organic chemistry, is allegedly adept at setting up facilities for the manufacturing of illicit drugs and allied chemicals. Shedge, who is in his early sixties, was arrested four times from 2019 to 2025 by the NCB and the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) for narcotics-trafficking and providing technical know-how for setting up illicit chemical laboratories. In 2018, he also faced an Enforcement Directorate (ED) investigation based on a narcotics case, NCB officials said.Shedge allegedly debuted as a drug trafficker in 2009. He was arrested by the DRI’s Mumbai unit the same year for dealing in psychotropic drugs regulated under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. After he was granted bail, he allegedly resumed drug-trafficking. He was arrested by the NCB’s Mumbai unit in 2012 for his alleged involvement in a case related to the trafficking of the synthetic drug Ketamine across multiple cities.Shedge was next arrested in 2018, again by the DRI’s Mumbai unit, for allegedly attempting to set up manufacturing facilities for illicit drugs. Later, in an improvised modus operandi to reduce his risks, he allegedly switched to illicit preparation of chemical compounds that were just a step below regulated psychotropic substances under the NDPS Act.Recognising the need to put a stop to Shedge’s activities, the NCB pursued a PIT-NDPS proposal against him for preventive detention. “Rahul Shedge’s detention is another step in the fight against drug trafficking and its proponents,” an NCB official said, while pointing out the agency’s efforts towards dismantling organised drug syndicates and narcotic offenders.Last May, in a similar case, the NCB had put Faisal Shaikh, an alleged city-based narcotics trafficker with international links to global traffickers, in preventive detention. He and six others had been arrested for their alleged involvement in a June 2023 case pertaining to the seizure of 20 kg of Mephedrone, also known by its street name ‘MD’, during an operation in Dongri. It was alleged that the MD had been supplied to Shaikh’s network by associates of then wanted narcotics trafficker Salim Dola. The NCB secured the return of Dola from Turkey in close coordination with Interpol and Indian intelligence agencies.