KOCHI: In a major haul of drug ampoules in the city, the special branch police on Monday arrested two persons, including a native of West Bengal, for possessing over 4,500 ampoules of Durogesic and Lupigesic.Special Branch Assistant Commissioner M Shamsu Illikkal said that the person from West Bengal has been identified as Saddam Hussain, 19, of Murshidabad. He was carrying nearly 2,200 ampoules at the time of arrest. According to the official, the ampoules were seized after the police put the activities of Hussain and his buyer in the city identified as Naushad, 33, of Velliyathunaddu, under surveillance for the last several days. The ampoules are basically painkillers which give a high when injected on a normal person."Hussain is a carrier who transports drug from Kolkata. We picked him from the Ernakulam Town Railway Station on Monday morning. On questioning him, we got information about the buyer. A police team immediately searched the premises of Naushad and recovered over 2,300 ampoules," he said. The seized contraband was worth ` 15 lakh in the black market. "Naushad who used to source the drug through Hussain at the rate of `12 per ampoule sells it to local customers at `100 per ampoule," the official said. He said Hussain was smuggling a large quantity of ampoules from Kolkata to Kochi for the second time. "Earlier, the buyers used to collect it from Chennai. But with the demand for ampoules increasing in Kochi, the smugglers started to smuggle them directly to Kochi. The police are on the look out for a person identified as Kabir who is said to be the main agent in the racket," he said. A probe has revealed that Naushad used to sell 2,000 ampoules a months in the local market and the rest to other parts of the state. A police team led by Assistant Commissioner Shamsu Illikkal, sub-inspectors Mohammed Nizar and Vijayashankar coordinated the operation to nab the accused as per the direction of City Police Commissioner M R Ajith Kumar and Deputy Commissioner P A Valsan.The police team will extend their probe to collect information about the local agents, who are distributing the ampoules in the city after sourcing it from major suppliers based in Kolkata and Chennai .
Comments
0 comment