Police seize 280 kg ganja, bust major drug racket

Mysuru: In a major breakthrough, Mysuru city police’s City Crime Branch (CCB) sleuths have seized 280 kg of ganja, what officers described as the biggest drug transportation racket routed through Mysuru in recent history.

The consignment was being moved in a truck, concealed between coconut saplings, and was allegedly headed to a location that cops are verifying.

Mysuru police intercepted the vehicle near a nursery in Alanahalli police limits and took into custody four youths, and searched the vehicle and seized ganja worth Rs 1.4 crore. They confiscated a truck and a car.

Police said the ganja was packed into 134 small bundles, which were then grouped into 15 sack cloth bags. To evade detection, the sacks were hidden among 72 coconut tree saplings loaded in the vehicle.

Commissioner of police Seema Latkar on Monday said the CCB team acted swiftly on intelligence inputs and executed the interception without allowing the consignment to slip through. Acting on a tip-off and sustained surveillance, CCB officers tracked the movement of one of the suspects for several days and maintained watch on the suspected transportation route for about a week before zeroing in on them, she told reporters.

A team of 18 personnel, led by ACP Mohammed Shariff Rawther and inspector Shabbir Hussain, intercepted the vehicle at around 3am. During the operation, police seized the truck used for transport and took custody of a car believed to be linked to the movement and coordination of the consignment. Four youths, Mohammed Zubair, Mudasir Ahamed, Abubaker Siddique and Syed Mazaar, all residents of Mysuru, were arrested in connection with the case, she said.

An officer said that two accused were travelling in the car and leading the truck. One of the accused’s locations was traced to Tirupati in neighbouring Andhra Pradesh when police got information about the consignment.

Police said the seizure is one of the biggest recoveries made by Mysuru city police in the recent past. Officials noted that in 2024, about 154 kg of ganja was seized, while earlier seizures were typically restricted to quantities below 80 kg. The latest haul, therefore, marks a sharp escalation in both scale and the level of concealment used by traffickers.

12 ganja cases in three months

The Mysuru city police, in the last three months, have also detected 12 NDPS cases and arrested 28 accused. About 43 kg of ganja along with 164 grams of synthetic drugs have been seized from the accused persons. Also, about 36 ganja consumption cases were detected during the period.