<img title="Illustration/Uday Mohite" src="http://images.mid-day.com/images/2017/apr/Drugs.jpg" alt="Illustration/Uday Mohite" /> Illustration/Uday Mohite
While the Mumbai police's indispensable khabri network has helped its personnel crack thousands of cases that otherwise may have gone unsolved, trusting informers in the absence of a drug-testing kit for meow-meow has cost the department two huge cases recently. The court threw out both cases.
Ever since the infamous party drug mephedrone, popularly known as meow meow, came under the NDPS Act in February 2015, anti-drug agencies have been finding it tough to test the psychotropic substance as soon as it is seized. Hence, they then have no option but to trust the khabri's information (that it is indeed what he says it is). And, this has caused much embarrassment to the department on two occasions, when its cases have been thrown out by the court on finding out that the substance isn't, in fact, meow meow.
Testing times One of these two cases involves the infamous drug queen Shashikala alias Baby Patankar. Constable Dharmraj Kalokhe, who allegedly had an affair with her, was arrested after 112 kg of mephedrone was found in his house in Lonavala and 12 kg was seized from his locker at the Marine Drive police station. In this case, the forensic science laboratories in Kalina and Pune sent reports to the Mumbai police crime branch and the Satara police, respectively, stating that the seized substance had tested negative for mephedrone, and was monosodium glutamate, commonly known as ajinomoto.
Sources from the narcotics department said they have three types of drug-detection kits &mdash; Test-A, Test-B and Test-E. Test-A helps to detect opium, morphine, codeine, heroin, amphetamines, and mescaline, Test-B helps to detect marijuana, hashish and hashish oil, and Test-E helps to detect cocaine and methaqualone.
"We have a kit ready with us, so whenever we raid or catch someone with drugs, we immediately test it and register an FIR," said an officer. "But, for MD, specifically, we do not have a detection kit, and hence, register cases based on what the informers or the accused reveal."
Getting it wrong The second case where the informers got it wrong involved a Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) sepoy herself, identified as Pravinta Wasnik (25). On January 12, she was arrested along with alleged drug dealer Gulam Azad and booked under the NDPS Act. The NCB had claimed that 919 g of a white crystalline powder, purportedly mephedrone, was seized from them. But after a month, the report from the CFSL in Hyderabad stated that of the three samples seized, one was methamphetamine and the others were aspirin.
A senior NCB officer said, "It is only when we suspect something amiss in the samples that we send them to the lab. The reports, however, take a month to come. Until then, we can neither detain the accused nor register a case."

Cops, who trusted informers' word when mephedrone was seized, left red-faced in court twice when the substance turned out to be a harmless food additive or some other drug

Khabri ne vaat laga diya! Informants leave Mumbai cops red-faced

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Cops, who trusted informers' word when mephedrone was seized, left red-faced in court twice when the substance turned out to be a harmless food additive or some other drug

Khabri ne vaat laga diya! Informants leave Mumbai cops red-faced

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Home / Mumbai / Mumbai News / Article / Khabri ne vaat laga diya! Informants leave Mumbai cops red-faced

Khabri ne vaat laga diya! Informants leave Mumbai cops red-faced

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