Residents of locality in KR Puram nab over a dozen drug abusers, hand them over to police

BENGALURU: In a one-of-its-kind incident, the residents of a locality came together and nabbed a bunch of drug abusers and handed them over to the police along with packets of narcotic substances.

A police team checks the packets of drugs kept hidden in vacant sites.

Over the last few days, the residents of Varanasi Layout in TC Palya under KR Puram police limits had been witnessing unusual activity during the night. Unidentified people used to suddenly turn up there, look for something in vacant sites and take it away.

Those caught by the residents of the locality.

Determined to unearth what was going on, the residents formed groups and kept watch. On Tuesday afternoon, when strangers started showing up in the locality, the residents got ready and blocked all the roads. In all, they managed to nab 13 people who are into drug abuse and peddling narcotic substances. They also seized the drugs and handed them over to the police.

Manjunath

Manjunath, a resident of the locality, said, “The key person, who has not been nabbed, usually comes around 2-3 am plants the drugs in vacant sites and bushes and shares the location of where he has planted the drugs with his customers. He keeps the drugs at 10 places and shares the location with 10 customers individually. One customer will not have contact with the other. They take the stuff from the location that that been shared with them.

“Since there is only one entry and exit point to our layout, we could catch them easily. Yesterday, about 20 people came here, but five managed to escape. We called the police and handed over those people to the authorities”, he added.

Varanasi Layout resident Nagesh.

Another resident, Nagesh, said, “The police do no arrive when we need them. They turn up only after many follow-up calls. A Nigerian comes here to drop off a friend. He openly declares that nobody can catch him. How are we to deal with such people if the police don’t act in time?”

Drug peddlers drop off packets in vacant sites and other places and share the location with their customers.

Drug peddlers have devised novel ways to get supplies across to their customers. The deal is first struck on WhatsApp calls and later on, packets of drugs are dropped off in vacant sites, near trees, in bushes and even in bus stations. The location of the packet is then shared with the customers individually on their mobile phones from where the latter pick it up without drawing attention towards themselves.

Drug Racket Busted

In another drug bust, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) police have seized 5 kg of hashish oil and 6 kg of ganja, worth Rs 4 crore. The police came to know about a drug trafficking gang after arresting the DJ of a popular pub in the city.

The gang cultivates ganja in the Araku and Senthipalli forests in Visakhapatnam and also extracts hashish oil. They used to operate without any phones or ID cards and would supply drugs to major cities like Bengaluru, Kochi, Chennai, Hyderabad and others along with fruit, vegetable and rice bags. They would not stay in one place and would keep changing their location.