Mumbai: Ganja seizure has city cops probing narco-Maoists link

The recent seizure of 1800 kg of cannabis or ganja in Mumbai has spurred the city police to widen its probe beyond Maharashtra It has sent out 16 cops to Odisha Telangana and Andhra Pradesh to find out if the trade is linked to MaoistsIn Odisha the police said cannabis is grown on a large scale in hilly areas that are considered Maoist hotbeds PicOdisha policeEarlier this month the Crime Branchrsquos AntiNarcotics Cell arrested a tempo driver Akash Yadav and his accomplice Saroj alias Sonu near Vikhroli on the Eastern Express Highway and recovered the drugs concealed in a chamber in the vehicleldquoThe consignment had been loaded in Ganjam district of Odisha and reached Mumbai via Maoistinfested zones of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana This prompted us to widen our probe as we suspect that the cultivation of cannabis could be done by Maoists in the hilly terrains of these states and smuggled to interstate druglords for bulk purchase of deadly weapons to execute their antigovernment operationsrdquo a top Crime Branch officer told middaySources said the 16 city cops probing narconaxalism have begun clicking photos and recording videos of the illicit drug cultivation in the three states using their phones and dronesThough a number of antiMaoist operations have shrunk the geographical spread of Maoist influence in Odisha a police officer from the eastern state said Devagiri and Mahendragad hills are still being used as their training grounds Ganjam Superintendent of Police Brijesh Kumar Rai said ldquoWe have flushed out their hideouts in our district but they have made a few storage centres in our districtrdquoThe racketeers create cavities in vehicles to transport the banned substance and to erase their trail the drivers are often changed ahead of interstate police checkposts This is to ensure that the driver doesnrsquot have much information about the main supplier in case the vehicle is intercepted It then becomes an arduous task for the cops to establish the long chain of command which often draws a nought said the officerIn the Vikhroli haul the two men are small fries while prime suspects Laxmikant Pradhan and Sandeep Satpute who owned a godown in Bhiwandi to store the narcotic substance are yet to be arrestedThe police are scanning the bank details of the arrested duo to check if there is any Maoist link ldquoIf need be we will get their bank accounts scanned forensicallyrdquo the source said Cannabis is grown at a large scale in Odisha since the plant grows faster in hilly regions which are Maoist hotbeds the source saidIn December 2020 local police and forest officials destroyed hemp crops across 40 acres in GanjamSP Rai said ldquoThere is no land in Ganjam where cannabis is cultivated We have recently destroyed all but it ganja is cultivated in the neighbouring districts where Maoist activities have been noticedrdquo The officer said areas in Ganjam are being used to store ganja ldquoWe are gathering human intelligence to conduct a massive crackdown on these illegal storagerdquo Rai addedSources said the drug mafia places orders for tons of cannabis from the faroff places and transports it to metro cities where the drug has high demand ldquoAlso smoking cannabisfilled cigarettes is common among collegegoers and youth So the suppliers also prefer having godowns in cities which are emerging as Indiarsquos education hubsrdquo said the source adding ldquoThe trucks are customised at Visakhapatnamrdquo16No of city cops involved in collecting evidence