The City police have successfully undertaken an inter-State operation to apprehend a person, suspected to be a vital link in the drug racket, from a naxal-affected region of Andhra Pradesh. A huge stash of 325 kg of marijuana was also seized in the operation.
A Shadow police team, which camped in East Godavari district for nearly five days, apprehended Srinivas, 21, of Krishnadevipeta in Visakhapatnam. He was caught after a tense face-off during which his armed accomplices managed to escape. The police team, which was assisted by the Andhra Pradesh police, managed to establish contact with the gang by pretending to be ganja dealers, who sought a large quantity of the contraband to be peddled in Kerala.
According to District police chief (Thiruvananthapuram city) Sanjay Kumar Gurudin, the accused is known to have supplied many batches of ganja that were smuggled to Thiruvananthapuram in recent times. Among these, he is suspected to have been involved in the seizures of 136 kg of ganja near the Thiruvananthapuram Medical College and 10 kg in Poonthura. Four people were arrested in these separate cases.
The officer said that most wholesale peddlers in the city are understood to have procured the contraband from Narsipatnam and East Godavari districts in Andhra Pradesh. Upon questioning those who were arrested in such cases, the police identified those who supplied the contraband at the source points.
Impetus
Mr. Gurudin said that the operation has provided impetus to the police’s efforts to rein in drug trade in the State capital.
The Poonthura police recorded the arrest of the accused.
