Five held for selling ganja in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: The Prohibition and Excise Department teams apprehended five drug peddlers who were found operating in the city’s IT corridor in Madhapur.

The gang was allegedly targeting the software engineers and students in areas like Madhapur, Serilingampally, Gachibowli, Kondapur, and Nanakramguda. During an anti-drugs operation, the Shamshabad Excise Task Force team seized 830 grams of ganja and 14 grams of hash oil from two persons in Siddique Nagar, Madhapur. The two accused persons were detained and their motorbike was also seized by the police. They have been charged under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act.

The Prohibition and Excise officials caught the young couple for allegedly peddling ganja to their acquaintances at Kondapur. The accused persons had escaped from their residences in Serilingampally and were staying in a private lodge in the locality. The police seized nearly one kg of contraband from the couple identified as Devadula Raju and Sanjana. Raju is a native of Nellore district while Sanjana is from Madhya Pradesh. The duo would allegedly procure drugs from different places and sell it in the Hitec City and Kondapur areas, the officials said.

In a similar operation, the police apprehended a woman identified as Rakhi Bai, a resident of the Hanuman temple area in Dhoolpet and 1.2 kg of ganja was recovered from her. During an interrogation, the woman told the police that an individual identified as Ramesh Singh was supplying ganja to her.

Meanwhile, a 42-year-old African national was held on the charges of cheating people on the pretext of supplying Fake Indian Currency Notes (FICN) in Hayathnagar on Saturday. The accused has been identified as Jacques Devalois Kit. He is a native of Cameroon and has been living in Bengaluru.

According to police, Jacques would first offer an original currency note to someone and ask them to purchase something in the market. Once he gained the person's trust, he would call them to a location under the guise of providing bundles of counterfeit currency. At that point, Jacques would take the genuine currency from the victim and escape from the place, the police added.