The Saravanampatti police on Friday arrested a police constable and a lawyer on the charges of aiding and having links with seven history-sheeters who were arrested with synthetic drug methamphetamine in April this year.
Grade-I constable P. Sridhar (33) attached to the Race Course police station and lawyer Ashik Ali (26), of Tipu Nagar at Ponnammapet in Salem district, were arrested by a special team of the police. Sridhar and Ali had been staying near Sundarapuram in Coimbatore.
The police said Sridhar and Ali were closely associated with seven history-sheeters, namely Suji Mohan (29), Aswin Kumar (29), V. Amarnath (23), C. Prasanth (25), K. Rajesh (25), Praveen Raj (25) and C. Pradeep (22), who were arrested with 55 g of methamphetamine from a place near Chinnavedampatti on April 29 night. Aswin Kumar was found possessing 1.2 kg of ganja additionally.
During the investigation, the police examined the mobile phones of the seven persons. They found audio recordings of Sridhar speaking to Mohan, a close aide of notorious goon Kamarajapuram Gowtham.
According to the police, Sridhar told Mohan that he was part of a special team of the police and had taken part in ‘encounters’ of rowdy elements. When Mohan and his friends told Sridhar that they wanted to avenge the murder of G. Gokul (25) of Lakshmi Garden near Kondayampalayam, who was hacked to death by a group of men near the Combined Court Complex at Gopalapuram in Coimbatore on February 13, the policeman allegedly advised them to wait until the top police officers in the city get transfers.
An official said the constable also passed information including steps being taken by the police to deal with criminals and drug peddlers. Ali was found to have aided the accused, received money from them and closely worked with the gang, the official added.
