MUMBAI: A Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) team, in Goregaon to nab a drug peddler, claimed it was attacked by a mob to foil its efforts on Sunday. But Goregaon police said three local residents got into a scuffle with the team. The three, two of them well-educated professionals, were arrested that day. A magistrate court remanded the three to judicial custody on Monday.
NCB said zonal director Sameer Wankhede and five personnel were undercover to look for a peddler at a chawl at Goregaon’s S V Road. The team took the alleged peddler, Kerry Mendes, into custody when three men blocked their way. The men started to argue and assembled a mob of around 30 that surrounded the team. The mob manhandled two officers, vandalised an official vehicle and damaged a pair of handcuffs, an NCB source said.
“The NCB team showed exemplary courage and thwarted the attempts of the attackers. The team calmed down the mob. Two NCB officers suffered minor injuries. Forty blots of LSD (considered large enough to be quantified as commercial) were seized from Mendes,” NCB stated.
Goregaon police said the NCB team had not informed them before the operation. One of them dialled the police control room seeking our intervention. Vipul Angre (25), Yusuf Shaikh (24) and his father, Amin, were taken into custody for manhandling NCB officers. The complaint does not mention other attackers,” a senior officer said.