Drug ring busted in Bengaluru after peddlers mistake engineers for police | Bengaluru News – Times of India

Bengaluru: It was a textbook case of guilty conscience gone wrong: In a comedy of errors on the outskirts of the city, four drug peddlers from Kerala mistook a group of apartment building engineers and supervisors for undercover cops and tried to flee.In the melee, one of them leaped from the second floor of the building and ended up with a fractured leg.When the ‘real’ policemen entered the picture to ascertain why the four had tried to flee, they ended up busting a drug racket: 160kg of ganja, nearly 1kg of hydro-ganja, and around 800 grams of methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) crystals — all worth over Rs 75 lakh — were seized from flat where the accused resided. A senior cop said the three suspects on the run are Sanju, Ubaid, and Rashid; the injured accused is Sachin Thomas, 25. All four are from Palakkad in Kerala.The high-voltage drama unfolded in a partially occupied apartment building near Anekal in Bengaluru Rural district Friday morning when a group of civil engineers and their subordinates inspected the unfinished apartment and were making note of the measures to be taken to complete the construction. The apartment project, spread across 18.5 acres of land, has 16 towers with over 1,280 flats. Bengaluru Rural district superintendent of police CK Baba said: “Since the apartment is semi-finished, a group of people, including engineers and maintenance staff, inspected the complex between 8.15am and 8.45am Friday. A person, who saw the inspection team and assumed them to be cops, alerted the accused stating police were on their way to their flat. The four peddlers, staying in flat number 109 on the second floor, panicked. Three of them managed to escape using the stairs and other ways, while one jumped from the second floor and ended up injuring his leg.”The inspection team, who watched the accused fleeing, were baffled. Sensing something amiss, they alerted police, who rushed to the spot and detained the injured man. Cops seized 75 packets of ganja, totalling 160kg and loaded in two four-wheelers. Later, police searched the flat rented by the accused and found around 1kg of hydro-ganja and 800 grams of MDMA. Baba said: “The quality of the seized drugs is being ascertained. A case has been registered under NDPS Act at Anekal police station. Three special teams have been formed to nab the absconding accused. Further probe will ascertain how long the accused were operating and who else is involved.” Drugs were meant to be sold in HampiA senior officer supervising the investigation told TOI that the drugs were procured from Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh and were meant to be sold to peddlers in Hampi in Vijayanagara district. They had loaded the 75 packs of ganja into two four-wheelers (an SUV and a car) and were about to take it to Hampi later on Friday, but their luck ran out. The accused were allegedly operating between Bengaluru and Hampi for the past four months and their clients included foreign tourists visiting the heritage site.