Telangana Police Bust inter-state Drugs Trafficking Racket in Hyderabad

Telangana Police nabbed another inter-state drug trafficking ring on Thursday, seizing 1,820 kg of marijuana (ganja) from a truck in Abdullapurmet, on the outskirts of Hyderabad. The Rachakonda Police Commissionerate's Special Operations Team (SOT) arrested five peddlers and seized contraband being smuggled from Sileru in Andhra Pradesh to Maharashtra. The ganja was being moved from Sileru to Maharashtra via Narsipatnam, Rajahmundry, Kodad, Suryapet, Choutuppal, and Hyderabad, said the police. Police recovered 182 ganja packets, a lorry, a car, Rs 41,000 in cash, and seven mobile phones, and the total value of all might be more than Rs 3 crore in their possession.

Based on valuable information, SOT, LB Nagar Zone, and Abdullapurmet police caught the drug peddlers. The truck driver was from West Bengal, while the other four were from Maharashtra. Sanjay Laxman Shinde, a resident of Maharashtra's Osmanabad area, is the main accused. He runs the drug peddling racket with his relatives, Sanjay Balaji Kale and Abhiman Kalyan Pawar, as well as their friends, Sanjay Chowgule and Bharat Kalappa. They hired Shek Rahidul, a West Bengal native, to drive the vehicle in order to illegally transport ganja from the Sileru agency area in Andhra Pradesh to Maharashtra.

According to Rachakonda Police Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat, the ganja packages were hidden inside organic compost bags. The accused were using the car as a pilot vehicle for the truck transporting the ganja. The accused told the police that they bought ganja for Rs 8,000 per kg and sold it to consumers in Maharashtra for Rs 15,000 per kg.
He claimed that this was the highest amount of ganja recovered in Rachakonda this year. Over 5,000 kilos of contraband were seized by the police. Since last month, the police commissionerates of Hyderabad, Cyberabad, and Rachakonda, which cover the city and its suburbs, as well as the excise department, have been conducting an intensive anti-drug campaign in response to Chief Minister K. Chandrasekhar Rao's directive to deal firmly with the drug menace.