Police nab two persons, seize 420 kg ganja, guns

For the first time, gun culture and gang wars appear to have found their way into ganja smuggling in the Agency area of Visakhapatnam district. A special team from the Ravikamatam police station on Sunday morning arrested two persons on the charge of smuggling ganja and recovered two country-made pistols, 28 live cartridges, 420 kg of dry ganja, and two vehicles from them. Cultivation of ganja is on in the remote parts of the Agency areas and is smuggled through various means. But this was for the first time that smugglers were caught with weapons and live rounds.

The arrested were identified as Dummala Venkateswara Rao (50), a resident of Sujatha Nagar, Visakhapatnam, and Amireddi Ramanna (35) of Ravikamatam mandal.

According to Kothakota CI H. Malleshwara Rao, the duo had procured the weapons from Rewa district in Madhya Pradesh.

He told

The Hindu that the smugglers had procured the weapons to protect themselves from the threat of another smuggler by name L. Srinivasa Chowdary alias Baba of Rajahmundry.