After 1.2 kg of MDMA was seized from a Kochi apartment last week, the Excise Enforcement and Customs Preventive Unit teams have been pulled up for trying to shield the accused.
Image credit: Screenshot/Asianet News
The Kochi Excise Enforcement wing, along with the Customs Preventive Unit and the Anti-Narcotic Special Squad, conducted two separate raids on an apartment in Kochi over two days, August 18 and 20. The teams seized about 1.2 kg of the banned MDMA, reportedly worth more than Rs 10 crore. While the first FIR (first information report) mentioned the charges and named a few accused persons, the second FIR by the Excise department was riddled with irregularities, which kicked up a controversy. On Thursday, August 26, a new CCTV footage of two women hiding the banned substance surfaced, which has further put the Kochi Excise Enforcement and the Customs Preventive Unit in a spot, as the investigating teams are being accused of attempting to sabotage a major drug bust in Kochi city. The black and white CCTV footage shows two women standing in the lobby of the apartment. One woman, Shabna, is seen hugging a parcel close to her chest and hurriedly walking out of the building, while the other, reportedly a native of Alappuzha, follows her. Shabna has been named in the first FIR, while the officials questioned the other woman and let her go. She has not been named in either of the FIRs. The incriminating footage has now raised a slew of questions against the investigating officers for not adding any names in the second FIR. On August 18, the Kochi Excise Enforcement wing, Customs Preventive Unit and the Anti-narcotic special squad, conducted a raid in an apartment in Vazhakkala, Ernakulam. In the first round of the raids, the teams seized 83 grams of MDMA (also referred to as ecstasy), a psychoactive drug used for recreational purposes and banned in India. The investigating officials took seven persons from the apartment into custody and registered an FIR on August 19, naming five accused persons. One man and a woman were left out of the case. According to multiple reports, the accused were booked under sections 25 (whoever having the control or use of any house knowingly allows it to be used for the commission of an offence), 22(c) (possession of drugs in commercial quantity) and 29 (party to criminal conspiracy) of the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985. However, within 24 hours, the Excise and Customs units conducted another huge raid in and around the apartment and seized 1.085 kilograms of MDMA from a neighbourhood car parking lot. The investigating officers lodged an FIR in the second case, only under section 22(c) of the NDPS Act, without naming a single accused. Multiple reports have quoted investigating officers stating that they could not find incriminating evidence that the residents of the same apartment (who are the accused in the first case) were involved in storing 1.085 kg of MDMA found during the second raid. The controversy erupted when neither the FIR nor the Mahasar (scene) report submitted by the Excise team in court contained the names of any accused in the second FIR. Following this, allegations of the probe team attempting to tamper with the case and safeguard the accused persons surfaced. The case has now been transferred to the Excise Crime Branch, which will launch fresh investigations into the case. More irregularities According to several sources, apart from the drugs, the excise department had also retrieved five mobile phones, Rs 5,000 in cash and a deer antler from the same apartment during the second raid. However, the Mahasar report submitted in court does not make a mention of the deer antler, possession of which is illegal in India. The excise department also failed to alert the Forest Department about seizing the deer antler. Speaking to the Times of India, a source from the Forest Department added that the Excise department not informing about the deer antlers and not adding it to the list of recovered objects from the raid in its Mahasar document would likely weaken the prosecution in the case. Responding to the controversy, Kerala Excise Minister MV Govindan confirmed that a detailed inquiry is being held by the department and that the excise commissioner has been asked to submit a final report to the ministry. He, however, refused to comment on allegations of tampering in the case by investigating officials.
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