The sight of a tired woman struggling to hold her baby while lugging a bag filled with vegetables, or an old man, worn out and carrying a load of fruits, can evoke sympathy in most people.
But for Excise officials at Amaravila, these are slowly becoming sights that rouse suspicion. The bag of vegetables, more than once, has turned out to have a few kg of ganja hidden deep inside.
Drug smugglers have found highly inventive ways to reach ganja to retailers at the market at Kalayikavila on the Kerala-Tamil Nadu border. The contraband is brought from the dense forests of Idukki via Cumbum, Theni, Madurai and Nagercoil or from the misty, hilly terrains in faraway Visakhapatnam.
According to a senior Excise official based at Amaravila, where the smugglers have repeatedly managed to trick officers at the check-post, the handing over of packets of one or two kg of ganja, along with vegetables in the busy market area has been going on for some time, with the Kanyakumari police, under whose jurisdiction the market falls, not being able to do much to prevent the crime.
State Excise officials have managed to nab six such cases in the last four months, three of which were major seizures of over one kg.
Tip of the iceberg But this is just the proverbial tip of the iceberg, the official said, pointing out that carriers were increasingly becoming tough to identify. Women and men posing as vegetable vendors were being used, with the deals now slowly moving to the most unexpected of spots, like busy bus-stands or hospitals.
A lodge near Kalayikavila, areas near the market are a few of the places where ganja brought in large quantities from different places is stocked.
Last week, when three men, including Satyan, 40, a key dealer, were nabbed with two kg of ganja, they confessed to smuggling in at least 50 kg every week across the border. They were caught when the stuff, brought by Satyan on his motorcycle, was being concealed under a load of vegetables in an autorickshaw, the police said.
Their growing client network here in the capital city included mostly migrant labourers, and of late, a large number of school and college students, the official added.
