LPG cylinders used for smuggling drugs

The city police on Monday busted a racket where LPG cylinders are used for smuggling drugs.

The police on Monday caught an autorickshaw driver and seized two LPG cylinders filled with marijuana. The drugs in the cylinders were bound for Krishnarajapuram to be sold to college students and others on the city's outskirts, the police said.

The arrested is Gulab Jaahn alias Gulabi (40), a resident of Vijinapura in Ramamurthynagar.  

Based on a tip-off, the police picked up Jaahn when he arrived in his autorickshaw to hand over two cylinders to one of his associates near KR Puram railway station.

The police have identified the person who sent him with cylinders and efforts are on to nab him, but the receiver, who was supposed to collect the drugs, was not known to Jaahn, the police said.

The police said peddlers cut the bottom of the cylinders and replace it with a metal sheet with a hinge and a lock. The sheet can be opened, filled with the contraband and locked up again.

"Welders and fabricators have joined the drug cartel and we also suspect that more LPG cylinders may have been tampered with. We  are also probing how the racketeers managed to tamper with LPG cylinders since it raises safety issues," said additional commissioner of police (East Zone) Seemant Kumar Singh.  

The Ramamurthynagar police have registered a case.  Further investigations are under way.