Anatomy of a nexus
On Friday, Hyderabad police caught small-time film producer Murali Srinivas, brother of well-known Telugu film actress Jeevitha. He was allegedly buying cocaine from one P Bhanuchander alias DJ Nash, a Nigerian national named Daniel Fernandes alias Simba, and one P Rambabu. The three were allegedly selling cocaine to Murali in the city’s posh Jubilee Hills area. Police say the trio had in their possession a massive 305 grams of cocaine.
For a drug peddler, Bhanuchander is not quite the down-and-out type. He comes from a respectable middle class family. His father is a retired Indian Forest Service (IFS) officer. But ever since he dropped out from Hyderabad’s Mahatma Gandhi Institute of Technology (MGIT) for lack of attendance, Bhanuchander has been working as a DJ, spinning discs at various pubs, first in Hyderabad and later in Goa, and calling himself ‘DJ Nash’.
But why are we telling you this story? That’s because it is one of those very familiar cases, which link Goa with drugs. DJ Nash, say the Hyderabad police, started taking up pub assignments in Goa just six months ago. It seems his agenda was not just trance music, but trances of a completely different kind.
During a press conference held to announce the seizure, Hyderabad Police Commissioner A K Khan told the media that many pub owners in Goa are “hand-in-glove with peddlers”. DJ Nash had no problem finding his way deep into the drug network here, and he allegedly began supplying the stuff to ‘friends’ back home in Hyderabad. They were selling cocaine for Rs4,000 per gram to an ‘A’ list clientele that apparently included a number of prominent Tollywood personalities (as the Telugu film industry is called). Hyderabad police, the Commissioner said, had been waiting for an opportunity to catch film producer Murali ever since they found his name in the mobile phone contacts list of a known drug peddler.
DJ Nash and his Nigerian associate Simba have revealed that they bought their cocaine from members of a “foreign drug ring” in Goa. The duo says they usually had the drugs delivered to them by bus from Karnataka, though this time they carried the stuff themselves on a Goa-Hyderabad bus.
Even if they are wealthy high-flyers, drug peddlers, say the Hyderabad police, rarely move their contraband by plane. Instead, they go from place to place by bus or travel Second Class by train, where there is little likelihood of an anti-narcotics check. The cocaine is packed in small packets with a tiny quantity in each, so that it is easier to conceal.
Obviously, Goa Head Constable Arun Dessai’s case (caught with 26kg of ‘charas’ in his car in Belgaum) is not an isolated one. Time and again, drug peddlers caught in Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mangalore and even Kerala say that they sourced their drugs from Goa. These cases get reported in national newspapers. We give them publicity in ‘Herald’ too. But has the Goa Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) ever sought custody of these suspects or sent a team to interrogate them about where they sourced their drugs from in Goa?
When the Belgaum cops caught Dessai and Co, they lost no time in interrogating them. They then promptly raided some premises in Goa, including a nightclub at Colva. If Goa’s ANC personnel showed the same alacrity every time a drug peddler caught in some other state confesses that (s)he sourced the stuff in Goa, they would be able to bust Goa’s drug ‘mafia’ in no time at all.
But they don’t…
While this in no way is evidence of a ‘nexus’, at very least, does it not indicate a strange and curious disinterest among these cops about doing their duty to the best of their abilities?
