Andhra Pradesh Director General of Police Goutam Sawang on Monday held an inter-state coordination meeting with higher police officials to discuss strategies to combat Narcotics trafficking.
Sawang while talking tosaid, "Today, an interstate coordination meeting to discuss strategies to combat narcotics trafficking was held. There were officers from states like Kerala, Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Karnataka, Odisha who were invited. Cannabis was the main focus. They all put forth their experiences and suggestions. Besides, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) was also involved in discussions."
The DGP said that the talks of Andhra Pradesh being a 'hub of drugs' after the Mudra Port drug seizure are baseless and politically motivated.
"It has nothing to do with the state of Andhra Pradesh except the name of the company which is registered in Vijayawada. Persons in the company are based in Chennai," he added.
The Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) had seized over 3,000 kg heroin and arrested two persons from Mundra Port in Gujarat in September. In October, the National Investigation Agency (NIA) took over the case.
The NIA FIR has mentioned Machavaram Sudhakaran, Durga PV Govindaraju and Rajkumar P as accused, among others.
Chennai-based Sudhakaran and Govindaraju own the company which was shipping the contraband. Govindaraju is the proprietor of Aashi Trading Company, registered in Andhra Pradesh's Vijayawada, that was importing talc from a firm called Hasan Husain Ltd.Rajkumar from Coimbatore worked in Iran and "was coordinating with foreign suppliers".
He said that a lot of cannabis cultivators are tribals from remote areas, which are Maoist-affected areas of Andhra-Odisha border areas.
"There are people from outside as well who organise the trade. They sponsor the trade, they supply the seeds," he added.
The DGP emphasised that the need was not to only destroy the cannabis crop but also to destroy the network and said that the focus was also on the kingpins of the drug networks.
( With inputs from ANI )
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