20 quintal ganja worth Rs 4 cr seized, two people arrested

Staff Reporter

In a major breakthrough, Jabalpur police seized a truck loaded with 20-quintals of Ganja amounting to Rs 4 crores, nabbed driver, conductor and booked the supplier and buyer into the case, on Sunday. The huge quantity of narcotics was being transported hiding under Neelgiri wood logs from Umarkot in Odisha towards Haryana. It is the 14th big blow to the drug mafia during a month in Jabalpur during ‘Operation Shikanja’. The arrested have been identified as Mohammed Shakeel Mansuri, a native Modaha, Hamirpur district in Uttar Pradesh and driver Mahesh Kumar, a resident of Kala area, Umarkot in Odisha while truck owner and supplier Palash Rai of Umarkot and buyer Ved Prakash Sharma of Haryana are still at large.

Superintendent of Police, Tushar Kant Vidyarthi informed that under the direction of Director General of Police, Sudhir Kumar Saxena, Jabalpur police have started Operation Shikanja under the supervision of ADGP (Jabalpur Zone), Umesh Joga and DIG (Jabalpur), RRS Parihar to put-up vigilant check on illegal trade and transportation of narcotic substances pointing out the forthcoming elections in the State. In compliance with the directions of senior officers, SP, Vidyarthi ordered to start strict vehicles checking on district borders.

During the checking, SHO, Tilwara, Sarita Barman and SHO, Madan Mahal, OP Tiwari under the supervision of CSP, Bargi, Sunil Nema and Additional SP (Rural), Sonali Verma managed to stop a suspected truck numbered CG-08L-3830 when its driver tried to escape from the checking point. In the search, police found Neelgiri wood logs and two men including a driver were travelling in the truck. Police held doubt and again searched the truck by removing the wood logs and found huge quantity of Ganja weighing around 20 quintals amounting to Rs 4 crores. Acting promptly on the information, ADGP, Umesh Joga along with other senior officers reached the spot and monitored the case.

In further investigation, police learnt that the narcotic stock was being transported by inter-state drug mafia activated in Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Haryana states.