950kg ganja seized, 8 held in Purnia

PATNA: In a major breakthrough, the Purnia police on Monday nabbed eight ganja smugglers and seized 950kg of the contraband from them.
The ganja is worth around Rs 2 crore in open market, police said and added they also seized Rs 1 lakh, an SUV, a truck and ten cellphones from the smugglers. Three of the arrested smugglers are from West Bengal and the rest from Bihar.
Reports said district police had already launched several drives to ensure proper implement prohibition when SP Nishant Kumar Tiwari said got a tip-off about the movement of ganja smugglers.
“We put up a police checkpost near Imli Chowk under the Shri Nagar police station area... On seeing police, an SUV car following a truck started speeding away,” the SP said.
The police team intercepted the truck and found ganja hidden in a metal box welded inside the body of the vehicle. The SUV was also chased and seized.
Police said the arrested smugglers included Gawaskar Rai, Jeevach Sharma, Mohd Abas and Pankaj Kumar Gupta of Purnia; Ranjeet Kumar of Naugachhia and Sintu Mochari, Shubhankar Das and Sushantu Rai of West Bengal. They told interrogators the supply was meant for Raniganj in Araria district.
Police said the gang was mainly active in the Seemanchal region and Naugachhia area in Bhajalpur district.