The love of cricket proved to be the undoing of drug dealer Moinuddin Khan, 25, who had been dodging the Anti-Narcotic Cell (ANC) and Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for two years. At least 15 special operations had been launched to capture the Dongri resident but the cat-and-mouse game ended last week after an Instagram post by an unknown individual revealed that he was playing cricket at a turf in Ahmedabad. An ANC team swiftly reached the location and, after an extensive search, successfully nabbed him. Khan was a fugitive in a mephedrone case valued at Rs 5 crore that was filed by the ANC in 2022.

He was linked to a 2021 case involving underworld don Karim Lala’s grandson, Parvez alias Chinku Pathan. In this case, NCB also arrested Arif Bhujwala, a key associate of Pathan, who was operating a drug factory in Dongri merely a few hundred metres away from the local police station. During the raids, NCB seized a substantial amount of drugs and cash. Bhujwala attempted to escape by jumping from a window but was later apprehended by the NCB.