CHHATTISGARH is apparently becoming a safe haven for drug smugglers. In another major catch, Excise Department along with Ratanpur Police seized about 110-kilogram of cannabis from two vehicles near Belha, about 20-kilometres away, from the district headquarters, on Bilaspur-Raipur National Highway on Sunday afternoon. Police seized the cars used in transportation of the consignment and arrested the peddlers, who confessed to their crime during interrogations. They had been involved in the crime since a long. The Excise Department and Ratanpur Police have registered an offence and started investigations.

 

 

According to information, there had been constant inputs of cannabis smuggling in the district from other states. The drug smuggling was gradually taking shape in the district. During a recent crime meeting Superintendent of Police Prashant Agrawal and Additional Police Superintendents (ASP) Umesh Kashyap and Sanjay Dhruv instructed all the Police Station House Officers (SHO) to launch ‘Operation Mukti’ against drug smuggling. Following instructions of the authorities, the cops intensified their networks and alerted the pointers. On Sunday afternoon, Ratanpur SHO Harvinder Singh received a specific input about interstate 'cannabis ' smuggling in the district and immediately passed on the message to Cyber Cell and senior officials.

 

Taking guidelines from the authorities, Inspectors Harvinder Singh and Kalim Khan, Sub Inspectors Shant Kumar Sahu, Manoj Naik and Ajay Vare, Assistant Sub Inspectors Hemant Singh and Constables Sonu Pal, Tadvir Porte, Dipak Upadhyay, Sarfaraz, Jai Sahu, Vikas Yadav, Sanjiv Jangde, Govind Sharma, Mukesh Verma, Dipak Yadav and Avinash Pandey launched a random vehicle checking drive near Belha By-pass on the Bilaspur-Raipur National Highway. The efforts of the team yielded results in few hours when they intercepted two car bearing numbers CG 28 E 9073 and CG 07 AJ 7748. While inspecting the vehicles the sleuths recovered about 110-kilograms of ‘Ganja’. Police arrested about half-a-dozen peddlers including Mohammed Yusuf (23) son of Mohammed Haji resident of Pendra, Mangal Sahu (34) son of Shivratan Sahu of Umaria, Prashant Sen (19), son of Mahendra Kumar Sen of Rewa, Dipak Tiwari (23) son of Sunil Tiwari of Gaurela, Ravi Sahu (26) son of Dhanpat Sahu of Kotma and Satish Gupta (30) son of Ramavtar Gupta, a resident of Kotma. During interrogations, all the accused confessed to their crime. They were involved in the crime since a long time carrying the cannabis to local suppliers who procured the drug and sold them to handlers. Police seized the vehicles and registered an offence against the accused under Section 20-B of Nacotics Act. Further investigations is on.