Team Herald
PANJIM: The Crime Branch police on Saturday arrested a 21-year-old Stephen Paul from Colvale, Bardez on the charge of possessing MDMA and Amphetamine/Meth drugs and other valuables all amounting to approximately Rs 3 lakh.
The police conducted the raid below the flyover near a petrol pump at Colvale and seized MDMA, weighing 6.733 grams and Amphetamine/Meth, weighing 5.475 grams from his possession. The police also attached his two-wheeler and a mobile phone during the raid.
The Crime Branch police team was led by PI Vikas Deykar, along with ASI Sriram Salgaonkar, head constables Ashok Gawade and Irshad Watange and constables Mahabaleshwar Sawant, Vinayak Sawant and Rupesh Gaikwad.
Meanwhile, police sources stated that the accused had allegedly been carrying on with his drug trade even when he was a minor and this time he was nabbed after cops sent a decoy customer to lure him in the trap.
In this case, the Crime Branch Police acted after the local police failed to nab the culprits despite several parents complaining to the men in uniform that Stephen Paul was allegedly supplying narcotics to youth in the village and vicinity.
The parents are demanding that the police should go to the root of the case and arrest the main dealer, who is suspected to be a Nigerian and has been selling his contraband to many other youth, who are feared to have turned addicts. “The accused Stephen Paul is just a small fry. He doesn’t manufacture drugs at home. The cops should track down the suspected Nigerian national who has turned many youth into peddlers and for the lure of easy money young men get entangled into the nefarious trade and draw others into it too,” said a parent who spoke to O Heraldo on condition of anonymity.
Parents complained that drugs are being sold in schools and higher secondary schools in the vicinity, and if the police fail to nip this malaise in the bud by arresting the main dealer before the tentacles of the nefarious trade traps in more innocent Goan youth.