Ahmedabad: Meth worth Rs 35 lakh seized, 4 held

AHMEDABAD: Sleuths of city crime branch swooped down on Silver Spring Hotel in Shah-e-Alam early on Monday morning and nabbed three persons from Thane — Barkatali Shaikh, 35, his wife Rubina, 31, and Alimohammed Shaikh, 26, — and seized 350g of methamphetamine, worth Rs 35 lakh, and Rs 60,000 cash. The intended recipient, Shahnawaz Pathan, 32, was arrested from the house of a relative in Shah-e-Alam.
Special commissioner of police, crime branch, Ajay Tomar, said that on raiding Pathan’s house at Hamid Flats in Shahpur, they recovered a scale, small plastic bags used to pack the drug and around Rs 4 lakh cash.

Tomar said that the accused, during their interrogation, said they thought the market for this drug would expand due to people being depressed after the lockdown.
Deputy commissioner of police, crime branch, Deepan Bhadran said Barkatali came to the city to deliver drugs often and was wanted in a 2019 case in which crime branch had seized mephedrone and cocaine worth Rs 61 lakh.
Bhadran added that Barkatali has a network of people for delivery of drugs and he sometimes delivered them himself. “We are hunting for peddlers in the city who bought drugs from Pathan,” Bhadran added.