MUMBAI: Vegetables truly have many benefits. Using them to stash drugs is just one. A 25-year-old man who had come up with a ingenious way of carrying marijuana (ganja) hidden in two pumpkins was arrested at
Chhatrapati Shivaji International Airport in Sahar late on Saturday just before he could wing his way to
Qatar.
The accused, Mohammed Sarwan, a resident of Mangaluru had carefully sliced open two pumpkins and tucked in 4kg of the narcotic drug in the vegetables. The drug, in tablet form, was cleverly concealed in some "dried greenish brown leafy material" and shoved into the pumpkins, said an officer of the Air Intelligence Unit. This unit had got a tip-off from the state anti-terrorism squad about a flyer from Mumbai to Doha and was to carry some "suspicious item".
Officials at Mumbai
airport who were watching Qatar-bound flyers intercepted Sarwan on suspicion. His baggage was rummaged and its contents examined. "The pumpkins itself raised suspicion. The mysterious leafy stuff inside confirmed our suspicion," said a Customs official. The tablets that were stuffed within were tested using a narcotic drug testing kit available at the airport. As it confirmed the presence of drugs, Sarwan was arrested and booked under the Narcotic and Drug Psychotropic Substances Act.
Sarwan has admitted he was carrying the drugs for one Sadik who paid him a cut. The officials have urged the court to allow them to destroy the pumpkins used to conceal the drugs as they are a highly preishable commodity. Normally, the container used to store the drug is required to be preserved as proof in the court of law.
Representative image