BENGALURU
On August 2, a man and woman from West Bengal, Humayun Kabir (21) and Rimpa Khatun (26) were arrested at the Cantonment railway station after they arrived on the Prashanti Express, which plies daily between Bhubaneswar in Odisha and the Bengaluru.
The railways have emerged in recent years as the primary mode for transporting ganja from Odisha and the border regions of Andhra Pradesh to Bengaluru, with the quantum of ganja being seized every year at railway stations in Bengaluru constantly rising, according to the railway police.
The number of cases registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act by the Karnataka railway police, specifically over the seizure of ganja from travellers, has risen from 12 in 2021 to 64 in the current year, while the number of people arrested has jumped from 14 in 2021 to 59.
“The transportation of ganja has seen a major rise in recent years. It is mostly being transported through personal baggage and backpacks by travellers in the unreserved compartments travelling from Odisha and its bordering regions,” said Sathish Kumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police.
While 220 NDPS cases have been registered since 2021, the total quantity of contraband seized is 2,163 kg, valued at Rs 16.57 crore, with over Rs 5 crore’s worth of ganja seized on an annual basis in the past three years.
In the current year, out of the 58 cases registered so far, the majority of the ganja seizures and arrest have occurred at the Byappanahalli railway station, known as the Sir M Visvesvaraya Terminal (SMVT), in east Bengaluru, which began operations in 2022 and is the main rail terminal for trains from the eastern parts of India like Odisha, West Bengal, Tripura, and Assam.
There is a big market for ganja in Bengaluru. It is widely consumed by migrant workers as well and is supplied as a job perk by their contractors in some cases. The ganja is also moved from Bengaluru to other places like Kerala by road, a railway police official said.
