Nexus of tech-savvy drug peddlers busted in Srinagar: Report

Srinagar, Nov 13: The law enforcement agencies in Kashmir have discovered a novel style used by tech-savvy drug peddlers by arresting one youth with sophisticated gadgets including, drone and encrypted apps.

A senior police official who apprehended the 20-year-old boy, a student of class 12 red-handed, carrying medicinal opioids in large quantities and a high-quality drone said, he had been tracking the boy for some time now but lacked evidence to arrest him.

"We could not find how he was dispensing drugs to people. It was very challenging to catch him. But some time ago, we learnt his supplies dried up. During those days, we tirelessly made a breakthrough and got to know about the arrival of a drug consignment for him from Delhi," the official told ETV Bharat.

The consignment as per the official was booked using encrypted WhatsApp messaging service while the money was transacted to the main supplier in Delhi using a fintech app to remove trails, said the official.

The official said, they were bewildered after confiscating a high-end drone for the first time in the valley which they said was used to track the movement of police and the peddler's clients.

The accused, as per the official, would deploy drone over his neighbourhood before giving location of the consignment to the client.

"He would navigate clients through WhatsApp calls to a spot where the consignment would be kept under drone surveillance," the official said.

"He had two drones including a toy drone and a DJI drone with a good camera resolution costing above Rs one lakh to get the aerial view of the neighbourhood. The drone was seized alongside 140 bottles of codeine phosphate and a cash of Rs 38,530," said the official.

The police have also apprehended the two of his associates, among which, one hails from south Kashmir's Athwajan and the other from Safa Kadal in Srinagar. They have been booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act (NDPS).

Drones are the latest tech being used by weapon and drug smugglers on both sides of the border.

Earlier, smuggling was usually done through pipes placed across the border or the consignments were directly flung over the fence.

According to a survey by the J&K administration in 2019, some six-lakh people—over 4.5 per cent of the total population of the Union territory (as per Census 2011)—are addicted to drugs. Of them, 90 per cent were found to be in the 17-33 age group.