Visakhapatnam City Police launch week-long anti-drug drive in city

The Visakhapatnam City Police, on Wednesday, launched a week-long anti-drug drive to crack the whip on activities related to Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS). The drive, which has been launched under the directions of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), will be operational up to 22 December.

As part of the drive, the city police detected three NDPS Act cases in Visakhapatnam city. In the first case, the cops seized a Hashish oil packet (1 kg) as part of a raid conducted by Visakhapatnam Police under the Pendurthy station limits. The accused, identified as P Vasundhara (21) and K Sireesha (21), both residents of Visakhapatnam, obtained the substance from ganja and stored it illegally.

The second case saw the police seize 38 kg of dry ganja, stored in 19 packets with each packet weighing 2 kg each. The accused, identified as J Bala Raju (25), J Durga Prasad (30), V Kesava Rao (25), S Manmadha Rao (28), all hailing from Visakhapatnam, allegedly collected 48 kg of dry ganja from Peddabailu and stored the same in 19 packets. They then cut into the base of a gas cylinder and stored 10 kg of ganja. The remaining 38 kg was stored in the seat covers of an autorickshaw. The accused were caught by the police when they had reached Duvvada Railway Station, en route to Vadlapudi.

In another case detected in the anti-drug drive, 4 packets of ganja, containing varying quantities of a total of 7 kg, were seized by the Visakhapatnam City Police. The accused, M Venkat Sanju (26) and D Sai Baba (20), both natives of Hyderabad, were allegedly trying to smuggle the ganja (which they purchased in Araku) to Hyderabad from Visakhapatnam. While they had planned to travel by a private travels bus, they were caught by the police at Resapuvanipalem. The police seized 4 bags containing 7 kg of ganja from them.

In this regard, the Visakhapatnam City Police stated that in 2020, 67 NDPS Act cases have been registered with 2233.54 kg of dry ganja being seized so far.

The SEB officials said that severe action will be taken against offenders who are involved in activities under the purview of NDPS Act, Gaming Act, AP Excise/Prohibition Acts etc. They further revealed that information related to the aforementioned issues can be mailed directly to sebvspcity@gmail.com or can be taken to the notice of the officials via the WhatsApp number 9493336633.