KOCHI: Pappadavada restaurant in Kochi was once known for ethnic dishes. It also made news for novel items such as a pazhankanji and pothichor. Recently, the outlet again hit the headlines — for all the wrong reasons. The restaurant near Kaloor has been shut down, and its owner is behind bars for supplying drugs in the city. It was a scientific investigation under the guidance of City Police Commissioner C H Nagaraju that uprooted a drug racket linked to the outlet.
It all started on August 18, when the police received a call from a courier agency, which suspected one of the parcels it received contained drugs.The hunch was right. Officers found 18g of methamphetamine, known in narco circles as meth. The address of the parcel turned out to be fake.
“Later, we found that similar parcels with the same fake address had arrived at the courier agency’s office,” says an officer who was part of the probe. “However, the staffers noted, every time, a youth arrived at the courier office to directly receive the parcel. So, we checked the CCTV visuals to identify the youth.”
Officers zeroed in on Ajmal from Kayamkulam. He used the tracking ID of the consignments, and would turn up at the courier office to collect the parcels.“Within a week, we took Ajmal into custody,” says the officer. “He revealed during interrogation that his friend Sameer from Kasaragod, who was staying in Kochi, also took delivery of consignments that were sent from Bengaluru.”
Officers found that Sameer had been jailed for 1.5 years in another drug case. “Soon, we nabbed him, too,”says the officer.Now, the big question remained: Who was sending these parcels? The probe team analysed the mobile phone records of Ajmal and Sameer. “Soon, our investigation narrowed down to Amal Nair, who had shifted from Kochi to Electronic City in Bengaluru last year.”
Amal was in the news for the Pappadavada venture, which he had started with his wife. “However, the restaurant ran into financial troubles and shut down in 2021,” says the officer. “We had earlier grilled Amal’s wife in another drug case, linked to the death of two models in a car accident while returning from a DJ party at Hotel No 18 in Kochi.”
The probe team approached the Cyber Cell for assistance, and tracked Amal’s live location. He was staying at a luxury apartment in Bengaluru.“Our team headed to Bengaluru and took him into custody by tracing his mobile tower location,” says the officer. “During the search at the apartment, we found material used to pack drugs.”
Amal admitted to the crime, claiming that he started peddling to overcome financial crisis. Officers noted that Amal had procured drugs from a Nigerian national, who is still on the run.Amal used to organise rave parties in Bengaluru and also supplied drugs to parties in Kochi. “He was using his connections to run a drug business in Kochi,” says the officer.“We have identified some of Amal’s prime customers. They are under our surveillance.”