The Begur police cracked an inter-State drug smuggling racket and arrested a gang of seven who were smuggling marijuana in a vehicle like in the recent Telugu blockbuster film Pushpa.
Th racket was unearthed when the police on July 18, nabbed three men red-handed selling marijuana near an under-construction house on RTO Office road and recovered 6.3 kg of marijuana from them.
A detailed questioning led them to the source of the drugs based on which the team intercepted a pick up truck on NICE Road junction in the early hours that was heading from Bidar to the city to deliver the drugs. The police caught four persons and recovered 168.6 kg of marijuana packed in plastic covered with 10 kg each neatly arranged in a secret chamber, below the floor of the truck, C.K. Baba, DCP, South East Division, said.
The accused, identified as Aravind, Pawan Amjad, Imtiyaz, Prabhu, Nazim and Prasad, are habitual offenders and sourced the drugs from their contacts in Vizag and Vishakapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. They told the police that they were inspired by the movie Pushpa and modified the truck to create a secret chamber so that they could smuggle the drugs easily. The police booked them under the NDPS Act and have taken them into custody to ascertain their network.
