Palm Beach Road Opium: SUV driver arrested from Rajasthan, supplier in Jail custody

Navi Mumbai: The SUV driver whose vehicle crashed into the traffic island at Nerul signal on the Palm beach road on May 22, after which police recovered 69 kgs of opium worth Rs 70 lakh and a country-made pistol with six bullets from the SUV, was remanded to jail custody, a police officer privy to the case said.

The NRI Coastal police also traced the opium supplier and arrested him from Rajasthan last week. The supplier was also remanded to jail custody, the officer said.

The officer said the SUV driver, Ganpat Birbal Ram, was detained from a hotel in Jodhpur. Police traced him after his driving licence was found in the damaged SUV from which the drugs and loaded firearm were recovered. The address on the licence was Motaniya Nagar, a rural village in Osian tehsil, Jodhpur district, Rajasthan.

As the SUV had a Jodhpur RTO passing, police obtained the licence holder’s registered mobile number and confirmed that the SUV, an MG Hector, was registered in the name of Ganpati Birbal Ram. Two police teams were formed to trace him. One team tracked his mobile tower location, but it was intermittently switched on. Another team went to his Jodhpur address, but he did not reach there. The police team camped in Jodhpur for six days and communicated with the tracking team.

Upon receiving information that his mobile tower location was in Jodhpur at a hotel, the police team reached the hotel and detained him on Thursday evening.

The officer said, “The SUV driver Ram after escaping from the accident spot had been changing his location and kept his mobile off for most of the time. To escape to Jodhpur, he borrowed the car of his friend residing in Navi Mumbai. The police team escorting the accused Ram from Jodhpur to Navi Mumbai had reached late night on Friday last week. Thereafter, he will be arrested in the FIR registered under NDPS Act, Fire Arms and BNS sections for rash and negligent driving on public way and endangering human life or public safety and causing damage to public property. After arresting the acccused Ganpat Ram he revealed the identity of the opium supplier from whom he had procured opium from MP where opium cultivation is legally permitted for medicinal and industrial purposes, subject to strict state government licensing and regulations. But, the accused misused the opium cultivation for indulging in drugs peddling. We are further probing the involvement of other accused in the drugs supply racket.“