Techie, three others held for selling drugs

A software engineer and his three associates have been arrested for selling cannabis and charas to college students and IT professionals in the city.

Ashok Bahaddur, 21, a native of Bajhang district in Nepal, Bijay Singh, 31, a resident of HSR Layout, Nizamuddin, 25, of N S Palya and Avishekh Singh, 34, of Hosapalya Main Road are the arrested. The police have recovered 2.7 kg charas and 5.3 kg cannabis worth Rs 27 lakh from them.

Avishekh Singh is a techie and a native of Delhi. Bahaddur moved to the city a few years ago and worked as a security guard for sometime. Nizamuddin, a native of Kerala, works as a driver in the United Arab Emirates. He had come to Kerala on leave recently. He was transporting goods illegally. Bijay Singh, a native of Kolkata, worked as an assistant in various business outlets.

According to the police, Bahaddur was procuring the banned substance from Umesh, one of Bahaddur’s friends in Bajhang district, Nepal, in bulk. Umesh was cultivating cannabis plants in a forest region there.

He was  also preparing charas using the plants.

“Bahaddur transported the substances by a bus from Nepal to Uttarakhand. He travelled to Delhi and then reached Bengaluru by train. He had wrapped the substances in plastic cover to prevent the smell emanating from inside his luggage,” a police inspector said.

The suspects had stored the substances at a house taken on rent in BTM Layout Second Stage. They had prepared small sachets and had packed the substances. Avishekh Singh would identify college students and IT professionals, while Nizamuddin and Bijay Singh would supply them at mutually decided places. Most of his customers were from African countries residing in East and Northeast Bengaluru, the police said.

During the interrogation, Avishekh Singh told the police that he came to the city about five years ago and worked in two reputed firms before getting into drug peddling a few months ago to earn money for his mother’s open heart surgery in Delhi as soon as possible.

The three other suspects said that they got into the drug sale to become rich overnight, the inspector said.