In a first, peddlers roping in minor girls to smuggle ganja from Odisha to Mumbai via Sec-bad
By : M Srinivas
Update: 2024-08-12 12:54 GMT
Hyderabad: Ganja peddlers are notorious for adopting various modus operandi (MO) to smuggle the contraband and sell it to persons known to them. But for the first time, the peddlers started roping in minor girls for getting ganja from Odisha and transporting them to Maharashtra via Secunderabad on train.
This shocking MO of smugglers came to light when the Secunderabad Government Railway Police (GRP) intercepted a minor girl at Secunderabad railway station a few days ago and grilled her. With the help of women staff, the police constables checked the seventeen-year-old girl and found 14 kgs of dry ganja worth over Rs.3.50 lakh.
To cash in on the poor financial conditions of the families, smugglers were found to be luring these minor girls offering them to pay Rs.5,000 for each trip for getting ganja from Odisha to Mumbai, police sources said. After landing in Mumbai, the smugglers would ask them to wait on the platform prescribed by them.
“Once they reach the platform, unidentified persons would collect the contraband and flee after paying the money,” sources said. Unaware of the legal provisions and danger involved in ganja smuggling, innocent minors were found to be falling in the smugglers trap, sources said.
They explained the smugglers were roping the minor girls believing that there would be no surveillance on the girls while travelling on trains.
On August 3, 2024, the Secunderabad GRP personnel arrested a 17-year-old school dropout girl for possessing three bundles of dry ganja in an olive-green bag on platform number seven in Secunderabad railway station. Hailing from Maharashtra, the girl along with two other absconding smugglers - Karan Shasirao Pawar and Deepak Shasirao Pawar allegedly went to Chitrapur in Odisha to smuggle the contraband to Mumbai.
They first boarded a train to Vizianagaram and then shifted to a general coach in Nagavali Express. After the train reached Secunderabad station, both Karan and Deepak, on seeing the police, asked her to wait on platform-7 saying that he was going to withdraw cash from an ATM but failed to return.
The police checked the girl and seized the contraband. Secunderabad GRP Inspector B. Saieashwar Goud confirmed that it was the first case in which a minor girl was allegedly found with ganja. “Smugglers often found to be using minor boys for getting ganja from Odisha but for the first time, a minor girl was involved in the case,” he explained. In 2024, at least four minor boys were allegedly involved in such cases.
After seizing the ganja from the minor girl, the police initiated action against her as per legal provisions.