KOCHI: The excise officers in Ernakulam on Wednesday arrested a 24-year-old IT expert after seizing around 5g of MDMA from him. The accused has been identified as Harikrishnan, a BTech graduate from Cherthala. According to the officers, he is one of the main persons operating a Telegram group named Night Riders Task Team, which has allegedly engaged in selling narcotic products in Ernakulam.
He was arrested in a joint operation carried out by the Ernakulam excise anti-narcotic special squad and Ernakulam city excise range. The officers said that he allegedly used Telegram to expand his customer network and used secret codes to do the drug transaction. He never engaged in direct deal with the customers and even the peddlers who worked for him have not seen him. He used to drop the drug in small packets along roads in isolated areas before sending the location via Telegram to the peddlers for the pickup.
“He procured the drugs in large quantities from Bengaluru and then sold it in retail using the Telegram group. After making the drops along roadsides, he used secret codes to alert the peddler about it and the peddler will send another secret code after picking up the drug. For example, they used the code ‘task completed’ after the pickup.
The officers got to know about the modus operandi when they arrested some of the youngsters who worked as peddlers for the accused. Several teams of officers were monitoring the places where he usually dropped the drug packets and nabbed him when he came to make the drop at a road near Kuzhuveli temple at Chalikkavattom on Wednesday.
Man held for stealing ornaments from temple
Kochi: City police arrested a man for allegedly posing as a temple priest to steal the sacred ornaments adorning the idols of various temples on Wednesday. The accused has been identified as Ashwanth, 32, of Azheekod in Kannur. He was arrested based on a complaint lodged by the office-bearers of a Devi temple at Vennala.
According to police, the newly appointed head priest at the temple became suspicious that the sacred ornaments on the idol were fake and alerted the temple authorities.
Police said the accused used to claim that he hailed from the Brahmin community so that he would get appointment in temples. Police took him into custody, and he reportedly confessed that he replaced original ornaments of the idols with fake replicas in various temples, police said.
