The Ernakulam Rural Police had hatched a perfect plan and pulled it off meticulously, leading to the arrest of two persons with possession of 31 kg of ganja smuggled in via a courier company on Monday.
The courier company operator had no clue about the suspicious parcel and the ensuing drama till the vehicle carrying the parcels for the day came to his firm's doorstep.
“Police in plain clothes were aboard that vehicle and they alerted us about the suspicious parcel that came in three packs and about the persons who were to turn up for it. They then positioned at various places and caught the two as they emerged out of the firm,” said the operator on condition of anonymity.
He suspected the number given for contact to be that of one of the accused though the name given, Vimal, was obviously fake. “Usually, when the original recipient does not come to collect the parcel, he or she informs us that someone else will instead. In this case, we got no such calls,” he said.
Modus operandi
It was perhaps the first such incident in which ganja was smuggled in as parcel in Ernakulam rural limits. Though the modus operandi in the latest case was novel, flow of drugs, however, is no longer new to Ernakulam rural limits.
In the last two-and-a-half years alone, rural police have seized 260-odd kilograms of ganja, 200 grams of hashish oil, 2.25kg of MDMA, 200g of brown sugar, 75 LSD stamps and so on.
“We makes these seizures while in transit thanks to our strong intelligence network, though it does not mean that the entire consignments are for consumption within the rural district limits. Majority of the seizures are made along the highway at Angamaly while being transported elsewhere,” said K. Karthik, District Police Chief (Ernakulam Rural).
For instance, in November last year, the Ernakulam rural police, in association with the District Anti-Narcotic Special Action Force, seized 140 kg of ganja in two separate operations.
In the first, the police team chased down three accused in two cars at Angamaly and seized from them 105 kg of ganja in 50 tightly sealed packs. Their interrogation led to the seizure of another 35 kg of ganja found hidden in 17 similarly sealed packets in a rented house at Avoli in Ernakulam rural limits.
Smuggled from Andhra Pradesh
The ganja seized was reportedly being smuggled from Andhra Pradesh to Thodupuzha in Idukki. They had procured it from the tribal belt of Annavaram near Visakhapatnam and the rented house was used to stock the contraband.
Police had since arrested more than 10 persons, including an Andhra Pradesh-based middleman, in connection with the case.
