The arrests on Thursday of two budding actors and a Nigerian national on charges of drug peddling had literally dissolved the sheen of Hyderabad being a drug-free city. In an alarming disclosure, the city police have announced that they had information about drugs being peddled in nine upmarket pubs.
The police have also disclosed that they had compiled a list of 60 people including entrepreneurs, film actors and students who are hooked onto drugs. The names of the drug-addicts have not been released, but Commissioner of Police A.K. Khan said, “We need to have material evidence. We will use decoy teams and nab them. Our aim is to catch them while being in possession of the drugs,” Mr. Khan told a press conference on Friday.
The Commissioner painted a grim picture of Hyderabad, shattering the belief that the fifth largest metropolitan city in the country did not have an organised crime syndicate and that the drug menace was minimal. “We have information about pubs where drugs are laced with drinks and served to women. We also know of some pubs which lure customers by offering drugs.”
The police made these startling findings after they laid their hands on B. Raghunadha Raju and B. Bharat Raju, budding actors and brothers of a popular cine star, in a classic sting operation. They had earlier nabbed a Nigerian, Chima Clement aka Victor, and seized 40 gm of cocaine. As Clement was being contacted repeatedly, the police laid a trap to get the prospective customers near Green Mosque on Banjara Hills road and nabbed the two actors and their friend D. Naresh. The entire operation in which Clement was handing over cocaine to the trio was video-graphed, too.
