Five drug peddlers get 12 yrs in jail

Lucknow: A Gorakhpur court on Monday sentenced five drug peddlers to 12 years of imprisonment in a 2019 drug trafficking case. NDPS Judge Vinay Arya also imposed a penalty of Rs 1 lakh on each.Those convicted were Santosh Pandey, Arvind Yadav, Prince Jaiswal, Rakesh Chaubey and Gopal Srivastava. They were arrested by NCB, Lucknow unit on May 9, 2019 and 202 kg Ganja was recovered from their possession.Special public prosecutor from Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Musafir Singh, said three witnesses were presented before the trial court and various case related documents were put and later argued against the accused for securing conviction. Zonal director, Narcotics Control Bureau, Prashant Srivastava, said the contraband was concealed in the cavity among legal goods, which were loaded in the truck bearing registration number of Azamgarh that was also seized.