HYDERABAD: In a joint operation, sleuths of the Shamshabad Special Operations Team (SOT) and Shamshabad police on Sunday morning arrested two persons and seized 800 kg of ganja. Police said the contraband was hidden among cotton seeds that had gone bad in a lorry heading towards Bulandshahr in Uttar Pradesh. Three others allegedly associated with the interstate operations are absconding.
Police said the lorry driver Khushi Mohammed and cleaner Sonu Singh from Uttar Pradesh were arrested under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. The receiver Sikhinder and lorry owner Bijender Singh, both from UP, and supplier Somu from Odisha are absconding, the cops added.
The police revealed that the receiver would monitor the operations after receiving the ganja from Somu, who sells it to desperate customers in Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. They said Sikhinder had been communicating with Khushi to take some of the ganja and sell it in UP and other neighbouring States. The ganja is procured from Odisha and Andhra Pradesh.
According to their plan, Khushi and Somu started for Andhra Pradesh and went on a lorry packed with cotton seeds to Rajamahendravaram on April 6 from Vijayawada. Upon reaching the destination, they were received by an anonymous person, who escorted them to the Agency areas, where ganja is grown.
There, two cars were loaded with 32 bags of ganja containing 64 packets of 12.5 kg each. They covered it with brown tape to escape the police.Somu had reportedly guided them to the main road, from where they started for Bulandshahr via Hyderabad. Wary of police tracking, the smugglers took the service road, but the police had prior information about it. The lorry was intercepted on the ORR Service Road on Pedda Golconda Cross Roads under the Shamshabad police station limits.The accused had bought ganja at Rs 3,000 per kilo and were planning to sell it for as much as Rs 20,000.