HYDERABAD: Kothur police late on Tuesday nabbed three Odisha-based drug peddlers selling ganja-laced chocolates in yellow and gold-coloured packets to schoolchildren and seized 8 kg “chocolates” from them, Shamshabad DCP Narayana Reddy said on Wednesday.
He said the police began the probe after the staff of a school in Kothur noticed students displaying drowsiness and behaving abnormally and alerted the police. The school staff told the police that the abnormal behaviour invariably began after the students consumed chocolates in paan boxes. “After we arrested them, we opened a chocolate pack and could smell black marijuana,” the DCP said.
The accused, identified as Dheerendra Bhehara, 33, Somanath Benera, 35, and Suriyamani Sahu, 35, are accused of selling the chocolates, packed in packets inscribed with the words “Charminar Gold Munakka” for `20 each to students and `9 to migrant labourers.
“We caught them selling these chocolates in three paan shops and seized 42 packets,” the DCP said. According to cops, the accused purchased the chocolates from a wholesale shop in Odisha. They then set up a kirana shop business to hide the ganja chocolates and sell them to their clients.
In the past three months, the trio had visited Odisha and bought more of these chocolates in bulk. They are said to have hidden the chocolates in cotton boxes kept in the store. In 2022, Patancheru police apprehended three Odisha-based men for selling similar ganja-laced chocolates under the same name.