2 Fishermen Ready to Smuggle 110 Kg Ganja to Lanka Held

PUDUKKOTTAI: Police arrested two Indian fishermen for attempting to smuggle 110 kg of ganja to Sri Lanka via the sea route from Manamelkudi seashore, in Pudukkottai district, in the wee hours of Tuesday.

Police said the arrested men, A. Arokia Rahul (31) hailed from Anthoniyarpuram fishermen hamlet, and K. Rajeswaran alias Sivasankar (29) was from the Panangkudi Thope fishermen hamlet.

They have been engaged in fishing activities for more than 10 years.

It is said Rahul’s maternal uncle S. Stephen Raj (52) of Sayalkudi contacted Rahul and asked him to shift two bags containing ganja by a fibre boat and hand it over to a Sri Lankan.

In the wee hours of Sunday, three white bags full of ganja were brought in a car and handed over to Rahul and Sivasankar at Athipattinam cremation road.

The duo loaded the ganja bags onto Rahul’s fibre boat. The entire Sunday night and Monday daytime showed that they engaged in fishing and reached the GPS point given by the Sri Lankan counterpart, to hand over the contraband.

But, as the Sri Lankan counterpart did not come to the GPS point mentioned by the Sri Lankan group till 2.15 am Tuesday, they brought the boat with the contraband to Anthoniyarpuram harbour, anchored it, and came to Manalmelkudi for tea.

In the meantime, police constable Thiyarajeswaran, recently transferred to Manamelkudi coastal police station from Sethubavachatram police station, noticed that one of the duo, was Rajeswaran, associated with smuggler Muthrasan of Karanguda, near Peravurani, and caught him and made enquiries with the duo.

The constable seized Rahul’s mobile phone and noticed that he had sent several audio messages to his Sri Lankan counterpart on the ganja smuggling activities. So, he took Rahul to the seashore and seized 110 kg of ganja.

The duo has been detained at the Manamelkudi coastal police station and investigations are on, police said.