The Kunnathunadu police have launched a probe into the mysterious incident in which 13 kg of ganja was found abandoned within its limits on the intervening night of Sunday.
The contraband was recovered in two lots containing 2 kg and 11 kg from two separate locations.
The first package along the Pattimattom-Kizhakkamabalam road was found by a youngster who mistook it for a courier packet that had accidentally fallen off a vehicle and brought it to the police. It turned out to be a tightly packed consignment of ganja measuring 2 kg.
No sooner was it found than a few more packets containing 11 kg of ganja were recovered from a rubber plantation not far away. A tapping worker had found the suspicious packages when he turned up for work in the morning hours on Monday. He promptly alerted the plantation owner, who in turn, informed the police.
On opening it at the station, the police found ganja in five tightly sealed packets covered with brown paper. “All the packages were similarly packed, giving the impression that perhaps they were part of the same consignment,” said V.T. Shajan, Station House Officer, Kunnathunadu.
The police have started collecting CCTV footage from the locality for clues. Efforts are on to collect the call data record of mobile phones, which were active in the nearest tower locations during the hours immediately before and after the packages were recovered.
Ganja trade has been common in Kunnathunadu limits with a large migrant population, though things were quiet during the lockdown and the months immediately after that.
“Our primary hunch is that the carriers might have spotted our night patrolling team engaged in vehicle checking and panicked. So, they probably abandoned it in the hope of recovering it later,” said Mr. Shajan.
The police have registered two cases under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act in this connection.
