Thiruvananthapuram: Against the backdrop of an actor, a director and three models being taken into custody on charges of possessing cocaine, Kerala home minister Ramesh Chennithala said on Sunday that the government was keeping a close watch on drug mafia operations in the state.
Incidentally, the five were taken into custody from an apartment in Kochi that belongs to Mohammed Nisham, the businessman who was arrested in Thrissur on Friday for assaulting a watchman at a residential complex and allegedly attempting to hit him with his Hummer car.
“The national and international drug mafia are active in the state”, Kerala home minister Ramesh Chennithala said, adding that the police were closely monitoring the situation. Police and other authorities are already conducting awareness camps in schools and educational institutions to save youth in the state from falling into the traps laid by drug rings.
Chennithala pointed out that the ‘Safe campus, Clean campus’ programme to create awareness among students was progressing well, and that the awareness drive was aimed at eradicating all forms of substance abuse.
On Saturday, police raided Nisham’s apartment in Kochi and took into custody actor Shine Tom Chacko, an assistant director, Blessy Sylvester and three young models and seized cocaine from them. First estimates put the value of cocaine seized at Rs1 million (Dh59,000). A case under Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act has been registered against the accused.
Chacko has been in the film world for about a decade and got his first break in the movie, Gaddama. He then got roles in Annayum Rasoolum, Ee Adutha Kaalam and Chapters. He also played a role in Ithihaasa.
Mohammed Nisham, who is now in custody of the Thrissur police, is likely to be questioned by Kochi police in connection with the arrest of Shine Tom Chacko and his associates from Nisham’s apartment.
Meanwhile, Chandrabose, the watchman at the residential complex in Thrissur who was assaulted by Nisham, and is recuperating at a hospital, is reportedly out of danger. Chief minister Oommen Chandy, who visited him at the hospital on Friday, had said that the state government would pay for the hospital expenses of the guard.
