Karnataka - Bangalore   

Seizure of brown sugar raises several questions

Over the years, NCB has arrested people with Sri Lankan links and seized huge quantities of narcotics, writes K. Satyamurty

IS BANGALORE a conduit for smuggling narcotics to Sri Lanka? The question has come to the fore with the city police recently seizing brown sugar estimated at Rs. 50 lakh from a person who had made several visits to Sri Lanka.

The police are investigating whether Mohammed Sharief (50) of Belgaum, who was arrested on charges of drug peddling on November 27, has any links with terrorist groups in Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Verification of his passport has revealed that he had obtained visa from Pakistan. The Mumbai police had earlier arrested him on similar charges.

Over the years the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) has arrested people with Sri Lankan links and seized huge quantities of narcotics from them in Bangalore and its surrounding areas.

A year ago, NCB officials from Chennai seized 11 kg of heroin that was being transported in a truck. The vehicle was intercepted on National Highway 4, off Madanayakanahalli, on the outskirts of Bangalore.

The narcotics were hidden under the stones in the truck that was coming to Bangalore from North India. Sources in the NCB had then said they were investigating the local links in the international drug trafficking racket as the seized heroin was to be transported from Bangalore to Sri Lanka. Conclusive proof is often difficult, because several "fronts" exist between the original source and the final destination, they maintained.

The Bangalore angle in the international drug trafficking came to light for the first time when the NCB arrested two Sri Lankan nationals, and a resident of Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu in December 1999 and confiscated from them narcotics worth crores of rupees. The NCB officials had intercepted the vehicle in which the three were travelling on National Highway 4 here.

In another raid in November 1999, the NCB staff arrested a man, again from Tuticorin, and his two associates from Bangalore and seized from them several crores worth of heroin.

The arrest of the Sri Lankan nationals and the Tuticorin connection in the drug smuggling are significant. In his work, "International and Regional Imperialism of Tamils," Rohan Gunaratne, a scholar, writes: "Tuticorin in coastal Tamil Nadu is the nucleus of narcotic and gold smuggling by the LTTE."

According to official sources, the LTTE cadres, through their sympathisers in India, allegedly smuggle narcotics to Sri Lanka by sea through the Palk Straits. Tuticorin is said to be a major centre through which the narcotics are smuggled into Sri Lanka, because of the proximity through the sea route. Before reaching Tuticorin and some other coastal districts of Tamil Nadu, the narcotics pass through various cities across India, and Bangalore is one among these important transit points, sources said.

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Seizure of brown sugar raises several questions

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