50 Students Under Probe For Drug Use

Hyderabad: At least 50 students of a private university are under investigation after the state’s anti-drug unit, the Elite Action Group for Drug Law Enforcement (EAGLE), busted a supply chain that moved ganja, OG weed, and MDMA into the varsity's Jeedimetla campus through courier parcels and local contacts.

The racket came to light during the Malnadu Restaurant case, when parcels were traced through Rajesh Enterprises, a franchise of Sree Maruti Couriers, EAGLE said.

“Two parcels emanating from a Nigerian in Delhi, which were delivered to a student, Dinesh, on two occasions (in the university),” it added. Another student, Bhaskar, also from BBA, made two payments to Nick, a Nigerian supplier – first `9,000 through a payment app and later `8,000 through an ATM cash deposit.

The EAGLE investigators said the network ran on three streams: OG weed procured in Delhi from suppliers Arvind Sharma and Aneel Soibam and hidden in courier parcels; ganja ferried from Bidar; and MDMA routed through a Nigerian called Nick.

“Each ounce (28 grams) of OG weed was purchased from Delhi for `30,000 and they were selling to the fellow students for `2,500 per gram. One gram of OG Weed goes into two cigarettes, making each student spending `2,500 every day,” the EAGLE release on Tuesday read.

The police and EAGLE team arrested four accused during a raid on August 25 at a rented apartment in Shivalayam Colony in Suraram, and seized 1.15 kg of ganja, 47 grams of OG weed, 28 drug-packing pouches, a digital weighing machine, and multiple smartphones.

Nevelle Tongbram, 21, a student from Manipur, stored consignments in a rented flat and handled payments. Ambati Ganesh, 24, of Jeedimetla, repackaged supplies into four-gram packets and sold them at `500 to students and other buyers. Boosa Shiva Kumar, 26, a marketing employee, brought ganja from Bidar. Mohd Ashar Jawed Khan, 21, a university student from its Delhi campus, distributed drugs on campus and sourced parcels from Gurugram and Delhi via post.

Investigators said that they “fanned out around the university campus” and, by tracking bank and UPI transactions, identified “some 50 students who might have been consuming drugs.”

Of these 50, 16 were subjected to a drugs test on August 25, of which five tested positive. “Either they should be going to a rehab centre, or having a case registered against them at the Dundigal police station,” a senior official told Deccan Chronicle.

The EAGLE accused the university of failing to act and criticised courier companies for malpractice. “ADC of the University never passed on faint suspicion to the local police. There is no checking of the hostels by the university authorities,” EAGLE said while naming “Sree Maruti Couriers, DTDC Couriers, India Post and Trackon Couriers” for delivering drug parcels.

“The trick was to give Nick’s contact number for all parcels. Nick would receive a phone call, and call up local sources here, asking them to pick up and deliver the contraband to the consumers. Nick’s contact was used everywhere to avoid detection of the rest of the accused,” the senior official said.

Nick has two more consumers in Telangana apart from the Malnadu and the university consumers. “Most of the consumers are from elite circles, often connected to Nick by another Thailand-based source, Praveen,” the senior official said.