Over 350 kg gutkha seized, 7 men held

Following information that gutkha concealed in candle boxes was being sold in several shops within their jurisdiction, Ice House police formed a special team. The team raided the shops in the locality and seized about 350 kg of banned gutkha substances and seized a two-wheeler and a mini truck.

The accused persons were identified as A Thamim Ansari (25) of Arumbakkam, K Rathnavelu (49) of Arumbakkam, and P Sureshkumar (29) and K Noorla Batsha (25) of Triplicane.

All of them were remanded in judicial custody.

In the other instance, CMBT police seized two vans on charges of smuggling gutkha products worth Rs 11 lakh and arrested three persons Vijay, Vijayakumar and Anwar, on Monday.

Meanwhile, more than 8 kilo ganja worth Rs 6 lakh was seized from seven men in Tondiarpet on Monday.

The police team, arrested seven men identified as R Ravichandran (52), G Sathya (28), T Selvaraj (36), V Suresh (34), C Rajkumar (32), M Kumar (46) and V Velu (47).

“Based on a tip-off, we nabbed the suspects near the railway track behind Kannan roundana bus stop in Tondiarpet on Monday as they were dividing the product among themselves,” said a police officer.

The seven men had smuggled the ganja from Andhra Pradesh and were selling it to college students in the city.