By Raju Vernekar
Mumbai, Oct 3:
Two people were arrested with 250 ecstasy pills worth Rs. 50 lakh in the international market from Dongri area in South Mumbai by officers of the property cell of the Mumbai Police’s crime branch and were remanded to police custody till October 5 on Friday.
The arrested accused have been identified as Amir Firoz Raffai (24) and Inayatali Abbas Mohammed Sayyad (29), both residents of Dongri. Raffai has four cases of assault registered against him in Dongri police station. Sayyad worked in a courier company and it is suspected he used to transport narcotics to various states.
Acting on the tip off that two persons were coming with narcotics contraband to deliver to someone in south Mumbai, the police team led by Inspector Dhiraj Koli, laid a trap and nabbed them. During the search, police found 125 ecstasy tablets from Raffai and 125 from Sayyad. “We are questioning them to find out from where they procured the contraband and to whom they were going to deliver it to,” PI Koli said.
“Ecstasy tablets, also known as MDMA, are not manufactured in Mumbai. They are usually brought in from other states. In this case, it is suspected to have been procured from Uttar Pradesh and Delhi. There is an inter-state racket involved and teams will be sent to other states to make more arrests,” the officer said and added that there an international link to the racket was not ruled out. The arrests were made following orders by the Mumbai Police Commissioner Param Bir Singh to crack down on drugs networks operating in the city.
In another case unit XI of the Mumbai Police’s crime branch, arrested two persons with 105 gram Mephedrone worth Rs 3.15 lakh from Rajendra Nagar area of Borivali East in North Mumbai.
Acting on the tip off, the police maintained a vigil near Dattapada area and arrested the accused –Niketan Suresh Jadhav(30) and Parvesh Hanif Halai (30). Their search revealed that they were carrying pouches filled with white substance. They were put under arrest and CR 38/2020 was registered. The charges under sections 8(c), and 22(c) of NDPS Act were fixed against them. They have been remanded to police custody till October 05.
Both the accused have criminal history and one of the accused was working as an assistant make up man in Bollywood. The operation was carried out under directions of Joint CP Milind Bharambe by a team comprising PI in-charge Sunil Mane, PIs Salil Bhosale, Rais Shaikh, Nitin Utekar, constables Ravindra Bhambid, Rajesh Chavan, Mahadev Navge, Sarika Kadan, Ria Anerao and others.