BENGALURU: He sold ketamine—a classified narcotic drug—which he illegally manufactured in his house in Kengeri, to his clients in Bengaluru, South East Asia and Australia. He concealed the contraband drug inside dholaks (a traditional percussion instrument in North India) to evade detection. Shivraj Urs (35), the alleged drug trafficker fell in the trap laid by the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) on Wednesday, when they caught him handing over a parcel of 26.75 kg of ketamine to one J Kannan (33) from Chennai, at Anand Rao Circle.
Kannan was arrested under the NDPS Act but Urs fled the scene. He was, however, detained later by the drug control officers, who raided his house on Thursday and found the illicit drug manufacturing laboratory and a good number of dholaks. “The NCB seized 25.45 kg of ketamine from the unit. In total, the NCB officers seized 52.20 kg of ketamine from Urs,” said an NCB officer.
Ketamine, which is often called ‘K’ or ‘Vitamin K’ is a potent dissociative drug and is banned under the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. Ketamine is a veterinary anaesthetic medicine but is rampantly used as a party or date rape drug by those who seek a detached high. It is a potent hallucinogen as well. The price of ketamine in the Indian grey market is around ` 5.5 lakh per kg. “The price is multiplied ten times, when it is smuggled to countries in South East Asia,” said
an officer.