3 men held for smuggling, supplying ganja in district

Coimbatore: The city police busted a three-member gang involved in smuggling marijuana (ganja) from Andhra Pradesh and selling it in the district on Saturday night.
According to a police officer, a special team led by sub-inspector Jecis Udhayaraj had got a tip about the ganja peddlers and they had deployed a decoy to strike a deal with them for 10kg ganja. “The decoy had asked them to bring ganja to Podanur on Saturday night. When two of the ganja peddlers - 62-year-old P Anthony, of Mulavukad in Ernakulam district in Kerala, and 51-year-old N Mayan, of Usilampatti in Madurai - turned up to seal the deal, the team caught them and seized 10kg ganja and a bike from them.”
Preliminary inquiry revealed that Anthony had taken a rental house at Othakkalmandapam on the outskirts of the city to stock ganja. “He used to visit Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh to procure ganja, which was then smuggled to Othakkalmandapam. The team conducted a raid at the house and seized another 14kg ganja from there,” the officer said.
During questioning, the officer said, the two told the team that one more person - 49-year-old B Muruganandam, from Kadamalaikundu village in Theni district - was involved in the gang. The team subsequently arrested him from Pollachi bus stand the same night. “While Anthony used to smuggle the contraband from Andhra Pradesh, the remaining two were supplying it in the district.”
All the three were booked under sections 8 (c), 20 (b) (ii) (C) and 29 (l) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act and produced before a judicial magistrate on Sunday morning. Later, they were lodged in Sathyamangalam sub-jail under judicial custody.