Pramesh S Jain
The East Division Police of Halasuru Police have arrested a 34 year old cab driver and recovered MDMA,heronine and Ya Ba tablets smuggling the drugs concealed in teddy bear,worth Rs 28 lakh from him.
The accused has been identified as,Shakir Hussain Choudhry,native of Assam and settled in Bengaluru for the last five years with family and working as cab driver.
According to the police,Shakir Hussain a drug addict turned peddler,used to procure the drugs from his contacts in Assam from Bengladeah.
Shakir would take his family to his native once in a month to get the consignment and conceal the contrabands in soft toys and hand it over to his children to play.This is to avoid the police checks and suspecion.
According to the police,he was checked by police of Different states many times but every time the children would get down with the toys and the police even scan the vehicles would not get it. Even his wife and kids are not aware about his plan.
Using this modus operandi,he had smuggled drugs many times and sell it to his clients who were college student and working professionals.
The police added that Ya Ba is a Thai name which literally means ‘mad drug’ and it is even known as Ya Ma which in Thai means horse drug.
The illicit use of this drug has been seen largely in southeast Asian countries like Thailand and Myanmar, but now it is easily available in Bangladesh also, the police said.
The Ya Ba drug is used to keep a person awake and alert for a minimum of 24 hours.
Of late,this drug is being used by college students who take this during examination and then they get addicted to it,the police said,adding that the tablet was extensively used by truck and bus drivers in southeast Asian nations.
Based on a tip off from an addict the police caught Shakir and a detailed questioning led him to confess to the crime.
Additional Commissioner of Police,East Zone,S Murugan,told media persons,East Division police officers and men have been successful in solving two cases namely one case in which MDMA tablets and heroine powder were being smuggled in a teddy bear which was brought from Bangladesh to Bengaluru by one person called Shakir Hussain Choudhry.
The accused is from Assam and works as a driver,in this connection 2200,Ya Ba MDMA tablets,71 grams of heroine powder worth around 28 lakhs has been seized.
The accused who is a driver has turned into drug peddling and he is from Assam,and he regularly travels between bordering areas and he drives his own car being a driver.
So in the guise of taking his family he would travel all the way procure or smuggled drugs from there bring them to Bengaluru.
As he travels with the family if somebody has teddy bear or some other soft toys and then he used to sell the same to his clients as college students and professionals he added.
Commissioner of police,Kamal Pant tweeted and said,Peddling drugs in Teddy Bear? We won’t spare!Appreciate all the hard work and effort by Halasuru police inspector and team in apprehending a person for peddling drugs by concealing it in stuffed toys like teddy bears.₹28 lakh worth of narcotic substances have been seized from the accused.
He even appreciated,Addl CP East,S Murugan, DCP,East,Dr SD Sharanappa,and his team as,ACP,Kumar,and PI,Shivaprasad and his whole team for the exemplary work done by them and a reward of ₹35K has been announced to the team he added.
The accused have been booked under NDPS act and investigation are on to ascertain his drug network.
