NAGAPATTINAM: Around 500 kg of ganja reportedly being smuggled into Sri Lanka was seized on Tuesday. The police arrested six persons in connection with the incident. The seized contraband was worth lakhs in the Indian black market and crores in the Sri Lankan black market.
Nagapattinam SP G Jawahar told The New Indian Express, "A group was smuggling the ganja from Andhra Pradesh via Tiruvannamalai. They were transporting the contraband under the guise of chicken feed in a pickup truck and thus, managed to cross many checkpoints. We thwarted the smuggling bid and arrested the group when they reached Nagapattinam. The group was trying to smuggle the contraband to Akkaraipettai and then smuggle forward to Sri Lanka via sea route."
According to the police, a team was keeping a watch on the vehicles coming towards Nagapattinam on Tuesday morning after learning that the huge consignment of ganja was being transported. On Tuesday, they stopped a couple of cars that were passing near the roundabout in Puthur and interrogated them. They identified that G Chandrasekar (49) from Velipalayam was driving the first car. They also identified P Srirangeswaran (26) from Muthupettai in Tiruvarur district was driving the second car. G Manivasakam and K Alexpanidyan (37) from Theni were also aboard the second car. The police then stopped the pickup truck which was tailing the two cars. M Umapathi (32) from Arani in Tiruvannamalai district was driving the pickup truck which had chicken feed in the truck bed.
"We found around 250 packets, weighing around 2 kg each, comprising ganja were concealed under the poultry feed. The group was planning to smuggle it to Sri Lanka in a fishing boat," said a police department official.
The police arrested the five-member group, and fisherman S Singaravel (44) from Akkaraipettai whose boat the smugglers were allegedly planning to use to bootleg the contraband. The police seized the two cars and the pickup truck. The six suspects were produced before a magistrate and remanded to judicial custody.
Nagapattinam SP G Jawahar warned that those who were involved in the smuggling would be booked under the Goondas Act.