Hyderabad: Five held for smuggling ganja, 803 kg of contraband seized

Two others absconding; police officials seize a DCM container and a car from their possession

Hyderabad: The Cyberabad Special Operations Team nabbed five members of a gang who allegedly involved in smuggling and sale of ganja. The police seized 803 kg of the contraband, a DCM container and a car from their possession.

The arrested were identified as Somanatha Khara (34) of Malkangiri Odisha,  Sanjeev Kumar Hollappa Okare (48) of Bidar, Harade Sanjeev Vittal Reddy (35) of Bidar in Karnataka, Sunil Khosla of Odisha and Jaga Suna (26) of Odisha.

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Two others — Ramu of Araku and Suresh Maruthi Patil of Navi Mumbai, Maharashtra — are absconding. According to D Srinivas, DCP SOT Cyberabad, the seven member gang was involved in ganja sale, transportation and it supplying to the customers.

Ramu was supplying the contraband through DCM and lorries to his clients in different parts of the country.  Recently, Somnath Khare made a deal with Sanjeev Vittal to supply the ganja to Navi Mumbai.

“On August 1, Sanjeev came to Vizag in a DCM to take delivery of barrels of chemical solvents from a company and transport it to Maharashtra. He also took the ganja from Somnath to transport it to Navi Mumbai. The ganja consignment was hidden in the DCM and transported under the garb of chemical solvents. On information, the SOT team caught them at Shamshabad,” said D Srinivas.

A kg of ganja is priced at Rs 35,000 in the market, said the official. Efforts are on to nab Suresh and Ramu who are absconding.