Four held with 294 kg of marijuana in Hyderabad

The arrested persons were V.Tirupathi from Nagarkurnool, P.Manktha from Nalgonda, P.Ravinder from Hasthinapuram and V.Kalyan from Nagarkurnool.

Hyderabad: The Rachakonda Special Operations Team along with the Ramannapet police busted an interstate drug peddling racket and arrested four persons on Sunday. Police seized 294 kg of marijuana, two cars and cash, altogether worth Rs.43.8 lakh.

The arrested persons were V.Tirupathi from Nagarkurnool, P.Manktha from Nalgonda, P.Ravinder from Hasthinapuram and V.Kalyan from Nagarkurnool. Two suspects, Buchi Babu and K.Surendra Dora from East Godavari district of Andhra Pradesh, were absconding. Tirupathi and Kalyan were brothers and Manktha was their distant relative while Ravinder is a mutual friend.

According to the police, Tirupathi, a cab driver, was earlier involved in a Excise liquor related case in 2020 and due to the pandemic and lockdown, could not find work. He then decided to take up drug peddling, after which he was engaged by a drug dealer from Maharashtra for driving and went to Rampachodavaram of Andhra Pradesh, where the owner of the car which he was driving, procured marijuana from Buchibabu. He smuggled the drug to Hyderabad.

“After this, Tirupathi was in contact with Buchi Babu and smuggled marijuana from agency areas in Rampachodavaram to sell in Telangana,” Rachakonda Commissioner Mahesh Bhagwat said, adding that he purchased the drug at Rs.3,000 per kg and sold it in Telangana at Rs.5,000 to Rs.8,000 per kg.

Recently, he got his brother and friends to join him and on January 7, they rented a car from one Raju and went to Rampachodavaram, where they purchased 294 kg of marijuana from Buchi Babu and Surendra Dora for Rs.1lakh and packed the same into 147 bags.

“When they reached near the toll plaza in Choutuppal late on Sunday, they saw the police check-post and diverted the car towards Ramannapet side, where the police caught them during another checking,” the Commissioner said.

Efforts are on to nab the absconding suspects.

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