Peddlers target students, techies in Hyderabad
Prohibition & Excise Dept advises parents to keep tabs on recreational activities of their children
Hyderabad: The Prohibition and Excise Department has cautioned parents asking them to keep an eye on their children as many students and software engineers were found to be getting addicted to marijuana and hashish oil.
The department advised parents to watch the recreational activities of their children who were going out in the name of friend’s birthday party, weekend parties, spending time with friends at apartment cellars, upstairs and open places in colonies.
The parents should also observe when the children demand money over and above the normal expenditure, going to tours to Araku in Visakhapatnam, Kasol in Himachal Pradesh, Kodaikanal in Tamil Nadu and Goa without parental supervision.
The disturbing trend was observed when the department started analysing the drugs cases that were busted by it in the last few months. Officials said the consumption of marijuana and hashish oil among students and software engineers has gone up since the lockdown.
The students and techies were establishing contacts between themselves through WhatsApp groups, according to officials. In two months, the Excise Department arrested 10 persons who started consuming marijuana or hashish oil during their college study hours and slowly were getting addicted to it.
Subsequently, they turned into supplier of the contraband. After addiction, they moved away from studies and good friends, lost their family supervision resulting in financial problems. And to meet their expenses, they were found to be selling the contraband to persons known to them and tried to expand their clientele thereby falling into the dragnet of the enforcement agencies.
Officials said that apart from possession, sale and transportation of drugs, consumption of drugs including marijuana and hashish oil was an punishable offence under the Section 27 of NDPS Act with a punishment for six months to one-year imprisonment.
They said the parents could contact them in case of any advice and approach a doctor or psychologist in the case of addiction issues.
Addiction leads to peddling
A software engineer, who used Instagram to purchase LSD (lysergic acid diethylamide, a synthetic crystalline compound, which is a powerful hallucinogenic drug) blots and sold them to needy customers, was arrested by the Prohibition and Excise department here on Tuesday.
Mohd Sohaib Khan, 22, a resident of Dilshad Nagar Colony in Rethi Bowli, placed an order for LSD through Instagram by paying the amount through Bitcoins. He purchased 100 LSD blots of 350 micrograms at Rs 850 per blot and sold each at a price ranging from Rs 1,700 to Rs 2,000. Initially, he got addicted to marijuana and slowly tried all types of drugs while attending psychedelic parties, according to N Anji Reddy, Assistant Excise Superintendent (Enforcement).
As purchasing LSD became tough and costly, Khan started ordering LSD through internet. He already sold 45 blots to customers within a few days and all of them were booked under Section 27 of NDPS Act for consuming narcotics and psychotropic substances. Reddy said the Excise department officials conducted a route watch at Mehdipatnam and after detaining Khan, seized 55 LSD blots along with his bike.
In a separate case, the department nabbed a former software engineer Rajannagari Sandeep Reddy of Chinnathokatta in Bowenpally and recovered 1 kg marijuana supplied by Bolla Durga Prasad of Balanagar crossroads and Kancharala Sathyanarayana Satti Babu of Moosapet. Both Prasad and Satti Babu were caught.
During the enquiry, Prasad revealed that due to financial problems during the lockdown, he started selling marijuana by purchasing it from Araku and Odisha at Rs 3,000 per kg and selling it for Rs 500 of 15 grams packet to customers near Moosapet, Bharathnagar, Sanathnagar and Bowenpally.
Another person, Unnam Shivaji from Jeedimetla, who is absconding, was supplying hashish oil to Sandeep Reddy, officials added.
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