Telangana: Drug pushers draft woman

Hyderabad: On Wednesday 40-year-old E. Yashodamma landed at the Secunderabad railway station with a heavy bag and headed towards the parking lot. What she did not notice was that five men in civvies were following her. At the parking lot the men told her, “Do not try to escape. You are under arrest.”

The woman surrendered and walked into the police van.
The men were undercover cops from the Commissioner’s Task Force, South Zone and the bag Yashodamma was carrying contained 30 kg Marijuana.

A few hours later at the Anti Narcotic Cell office Yashodamma said, “I am a cancer patient. They told me they would pay me if I go to Hyderabad and deliver the bag. This is the only way I can buy medicine and food.”

She confessed that she was smuggling the drug from Vishakhapatnam and was supposed to hand over the bag to two peddlers in Hyderabad.

The Task Force had received a tip-off about the smuggling. The team waited outside the station but could not arrest the peddlers.

“Two men named Ravi Kumar and Ibrahim were supposed to collect the bag. However, they escaped when our team reached there,” said inspector T. Sukhdev Singh of the South Zone Task Force police.

Yashodamma was given the drug by a man named Rakesh at Vizag. He was using her to transport the narcotic as the police usually do not check women. “Rakesh offered her '4,000 to '5,000 to transport the drug from Vishakhapatnam to Hyderabad,” said the inspector.  

Though Yashodamma claimed this was her first attempt cops do not believe her. The police has not believed her cancer claim either.

“We cannot confirm it now. Many give such excuses when arrested. But we will inquire into that,” said an official.

As per her confession, Yashodamma is a widow from Medikonduru mandal of Guntur. “After her husband E. Bheemanna and two daughters abandoned her 10 years ago she has been living with her aged mother and was earning money working in farms,” said an official from the Anti-Narcotic Cell. 

During the interrogation she confessed that she was desperate for money.
Middle aged women are being used by drug runners in Visakhapatnam.

Earlier in November, the Vizag police had arrested five women in their 40s from the Yelamanchili area along with 80 kg Ganja.