Sandalwood drugs case: Lookout notice issued against Aditya Alva

BENGALURU: Central Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths investigating the drug-peddling scandal with alleged links to Sandalwood celebrities on Monday issued a lookout circular against two suspects - businessman Shivaprakash and ex-minister Jeevaraj Alva's son Aditya Alva.
"We have verified with the agencies concerned and found that Aditya Alva and Shivaprakash have not left the country.A lookout circular has been issued and all airports have been alerted," said joint commissioner of police Sandeep Patil.
Shivaprakash was identified as accused No 1 in the FIR registered by CCB on September 4 and Alva accused No 6. CCB police raided Alva's farmhouse near Hebbal on September 14.
Meanwhile, a special court for Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act cases on Monday adjourned the hearing on anticipatory bail petitions filed by the suspects to September 24.
The court is hearing anticipatory bail petitions of Shivaprakash and Vinay and bail pleas from actresses Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjjanaa Galrani, event managers Viren Khanna and Rahul Thonshe, businessman Aditya Agarwal and Senegalese national Pepper Samba.
Advocates appearing on behalf of the accused argued that police have not made any specific allegations against them and also failed to make any incriminating and noticeable recoveries from them.
Special public prosecutor Veeranna G Tigadi said he'll file objections to all the petitions on September 24.
The scandal first came to light when the Narcotics Control Bureau arrested a woman and two men from a flat in Kalyan Nagar on August 21 and recovered 4,317 MDMA pills, 180 LSD blots and Rs 2.2 lakh from them. After NCB went public with the three peddlers' links with Sandalwood, the CCB picked up RTO official Ravi Shankar and based on his statement, booked an FIR on September 4. The FIR named 12 suspects.
Six of the 12 suspects have been arrested. They include Ragini, Khanna, Thonshe, Samba, businessman Prashant Ranka and bullion trader Vaibhav Jain. Later, CCB police arrested Sanjjanaa, model Niyaz Mohammed, businessman Aditya Agarwal, Pratik Shetty and Sri alias Srinvas Subramanyan. All of them, except Sri, are in judicial custody.
Several celebrities, including actor Diganth Manchale, his wife Aindrita Ray and Akul Balajee have been questioned in the case.