Police seize 8 tonnes of gutka in raids, 8 held

CHENNAI: In continuing raids on stockists of banned tobacco products in the city, police on Friday and Saturday seized 8.32 tonnes of gutka and other products and arrested eight people including two brothers.


In one raid, police seized 1,461sachets of gutka of MDM brand owned by tobacco baron A V Madhava Rao, who is now facing charges of bribing senior ministers, IPS officers and IAS officers to continue the trade across the state.

The raids, conducted by a team of 100 police personnel at various places, began on Friday and in some places continued on Saturday.

A police press release said the first series of checks was held at Chairman Agency at

Chromepet

, Kamatchi Store in

Pallavaram

, Ammachiyar Provision Store in Hastinapuram, Vairam Cool Bar at Hastinapuram, T S Rajamani Store at Madipakkam, Vinayaga Store at S Kolathur in Kovilambakkam and Ganpath Store at West Tambaram.

The arrested men — A Stephen Gopi, 35, R Mahendran, 32, A Selvan, 31, C Murugan, 50, N SenthilKumar, 43, and B Manoharan — were handed over to the jurisdictional officers before a court sent them to prison.

Police later raided some houses in Chromepet, Nemilicherry and R K Nagar areas based on specific information provided and seized 3.32 tonnes of gutka and banned tobacco products. Among those arrested were K Muthuraj, 31, and his brother K Muthu Sudhakar, 26, residents of Chromepet, who had been using three trucks to supply gutka to petty shops and retail outlets across the city. The vehicles have been seized.

The raids followed a few news reports in TOI about the easy available of gutka and other tobacco products in retail outlets in the city, despite a ban being in place since 2013. Chennai police commissioner A K Viswanathan ordered surprise checks at many places to crack down on gutka sales.

In earlier raids, police seized at least five tonnes of contraband including banned tobacco products and gutka from many places. The seized material was worth more than ?35 lakh, apart from ?4.5 lakh in cash.