A police officer was arrested on charges of involvement in cannabis smuggling in Odisha’s Malkangiri district. He was caught with four quintals of ganja.
Jaydas Khara, Assistant SI at Kartanpali police outpost, had been under the scanner of the Department for a year. When the police came to know that he was looking for a vehicle to transport ganja, it laid a trap for him.
Three of his accomplices have also been taken into custody. The car, mobile phones and bikes have been seized from them. All the accused were produced before court.
Huge quantity of ganja is smuggled from Malkangiri to neighbouring States such as Andhra Pradesh and Chhattisgarh. In the past, police personnel and journalists had also been arrested on charges of smuggling it.
Arrests of people involved in large–scale cultivation of cannabis and subsequent transportation of the weed has led to overflowing of the prison in Malkangiri, the southernmost district of Odisha.
The Orissa High Court, which is now hearing a case of over–crowding in the State prisons, was informed that an estimated 90% of undertrial prisoners (UTPs) lodged in the Malkangiri district jail were held with commercial quantity of ganja.
The number of prisoners lodged in the jail was found to be 818 as against its capacity of 314 inmates by October 31.
