Tirupati: Student gang involved in transport, sale of ganja busted

Tirupati: The Chandragiri police arrested five students at Narsingapuram Railway Station for illegally transporting weed on Tuesday. They were studying in different colleges in the city and selling the weed to students here. According to CI Srinivasulu, acting on a tip-off a team of police laid a watch at Narsingapuram Railway Station and tried to arrest nine students-turned peddlers when they alighted from a train.

After noticing the police, the group of students tried to escape but the cops were able to nab five of them while the other four absconded. Police seized 5.4 kg of cannabis being carried in a grocery bag by them. The arrested five were identified as Thanrun (25), an engineering graduate, Dileep Kumar (15) an Intermediate student, Gunasagar (21), a B Com student, Akhil Reddy (21), engineering student and Harsha (23) studying hotel management course. All these five accused belonged to various places in Tirupati. The absconded four Sravan, Rajesh, Hareesh and Rupesh, are also residents of Tirupati and the police launched a man hunt for them.

During the interrogation, the arrested five revealed their way of doing illicit business. These nine friends were habituated to smoking marijuana during lockdown and after some time they became addicted. In a bid to make easy money, they were indulging in sale of drugs. The accused had identified a supplier in Bhimavaram of West Godavari district who was supplying ganja at Rs 2,500 per kg to them. They make it into small packets of 50 grams each and sell them at Rs 500 each to college students.

They expanded their network of customers (students) in the city through existing customers. Due to lockdown as all the colleges were forced to shut down, the gang supplied weed to students at their homes or other places in the city. This has been going on for some months. SIs Vijay Kumar Naik, Himabindu, constables Giribabu, Gopi, Ravikumar and Amarnath were present in the arrest.