ELURU: Police on Friday arrested seven persons and seized ganja weighing 500 kg which was being smuggled to Hyderabad from Vizag on Friday morning.
The Devarapalli police received a tip off in the wee hours of Friday that some people had loaded ganja weighing 500 kg into an Eicher Van numbered AP05X6130. The informer told the cops that the van had hidden the narcotic beneath mangoes.
Acting on the information, the CI of the police station ordered the checking of vehicles along the national Highway around 4.45 from Devarapalli Centre Check Post. The van and a white Toyota car entered Devarapalli Check Post area and tried to speed away on spotting the cops, but hit an electric pole in the process. The police immediately reached the spot and took three people - MD Riyaz Khan Akbar from Rajamahendravaram, N Nukaraju of Narsipatnam and Aiti Satyanarayana of Visakhapatnam - into custody.
The police also arrested the four people - Abdullah Khan, Vishal Shinde, Anil Mann, Baba Saheb Mastan, all of the Maharasthra - travelling in the Toyota car.
Upon interrogation, the accused told the police that they were taking the ganja stock to Hyderabad from Visakhapatnam. The accused has installed a separate basin in the van for loading ganja.