SHILLONG /TURA, April 24: Contraband smuggling in Meghalaya has seen an upward trend of late, with police making umpteen drug busts across various parts of the state.
Only on Thursday, West Garo Hills Police intercepted two drug peddlers who were transporting a sizable amount of a contraband substance manufactured in Myanmar, which was smuggled into the North East through Bangladesh.
After receiving intelligence inputs about a possible shipment of Yaba tablets through the plain belt region of West Garo Hills, police put in place a special team to intercept the consignment. “A team under the supervision of SDPO (Sadar) Tura and involving personnel from the Garobadha Investigation Centre intercepted the drug smugglers at a tri-junction near Garobadha town,” informed West Garo Hills Superintendent of Police, MGR Kumar.
He revealed that the smugglers had tried to escape the police dragnet but were eventually apprehended after a hot pursuit. The police was successful in confiscating around 20,000 Yaba tablets weighing approximately two kilograms.
According to police, the arrested drug peddlers are part of a bigger gang and teams have been dispatched to arrest the other criminals, including their kingpin.
West Jaintia Hills
In West Jaintia Hills, the police were also successful in confiscating contraband.
According to a police complaint, a telephonic information from the headman of Wahiajer village, West Jaintia Hills, was received, who informed that they had detained one vehicle and that the driver of the vehicle was suspected to be peddling contraband. Following this, police rushed to the site and while searching one vehicle (ML-04C-3490), they recovered one mobile phone, Rs 13,510 in cash and 0.86 grams of suspected heroin.
Mawiong viewpoint
In another case, police on April 21 afternoon, acting on inputs, conducted naka check at Mawiong viewpoint, and intercepted two vehicles — Maruti Alto-800 car (ML-05V-2798) driven by Joseph D’Souza along with one occupant viz., Combert Syad and Maruti Zen car (AS-01-BJ-5139) driven by Ricky Kharhujon along with two women occupants, viz. Adaliu Chawang and Boni Chache — and recovered 100.66 grams of suspected heroin and Rs 1,92,050 in cash. Police have arrested all the five persons.
Umsning
In a similar incident, police, on the night of April 20, while checking a vehicle (ML-09-6066) at Umsning, Ri Bhoi, seized 90 grams of suspected heroin from the possession of one Ronand Kyndiah (23).
