Sandalwood drugs case: CCB collects hair samples of accused

Central Crime Branch (CCB) officials on Saturday collected the hair samples of those accused in the Sandalwood drugs case.

A senior officer said samples of actors Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjjanaa Galrani, besides Prashanth Ranka, Loum Pepper Samba, Rahul Thonse and Niyaz Mohammed were collected in a four-hour process in the Parappana Agrahara Central Prison. A team of CCB officials and forensic experts from Bowring Hospital were at the prison to collect the samples.

“We are going to send the samples to the Forensic Sciences Laboratory (FSL), Hyderabad, at the earliest,” the officer said.

A special court for Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act on Friday allowed the CCB to collect the hair samples of the accused. The CCB had approached the court as the accused refused to cooperate with the investigating officers to collect the samples.

Though the CCB had sent the samples of the six accused before, the FSL had returned them saying the due process was not followed in collecting them. “This time, we have followed the guidelines,” an investigating officer said.