Police in Bengaluru on Tuesday arrested Kannada film producer Shankare Gowda in connection with an ongoing probe into a drugs case. According to The Times of India, Gowda was arrested on charges of peddling drugs and hosting parties at his Sanjaynagar residence where drugs were allegedly consumed. The Hindu reported that in addition to drug related offences, under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, the film producer was also booked for abetment and criminal conspiracy.
Tuesday’s arrest comes after the Govindapura police had first raided the film producer’s residence on March 8 relying on information given by some drug dealers who were arrested earlier. The TOI report said that at that time, actors Tanisha and Bigg Boss participant Mastan Chandra, were also questioned about the drugs case. It is based on their interrogation that police had established that Gowda was allegedly involved in this drug racket.
This case is independent of the high profile Sandalwood drugs case involving actors Ragini Dwivedi and Sanjjanaa Galrani busted by the Central Crime Branch in 2020. Earlier in March, the CCB had filed a chargesheet in the case against 25 individuals including four Nigerians nationals. Among the accused were Ragini Dwivedi, Sanjjanaa Galrani, Vinay Kumar, BK Ravi Shankar, Aditya Alva, Veeren Khanna, Rahul Thonse, Aditya Agarwal, Prashanth Ranka, Srinivas Subramanya alias Shri, Benald Udenna, Chidiebere Ambrose alias Chief, Loom Pepper Samba alias Simon, Aswin Kumar, Osita Onoh Philip, Pratheek Shetty, Shivaprakash and Vaibhav Jain.
The Anti-narcotics wing of the Central Crime Branch (CCB) in February also unearthed a drug racket in Bengaluru’s Ramamurthy Nagar. At that time, police had arrested four accused and recovered MDMA crystals valued at Rs 75 lakh from the four accused. The accused were identified as Ndikata Albert Jr. (43) from Nigeria, and Helson Henry Koppi (34), Junaid (32) and Shakeer (35) from Kannur in Kerala. The four were allegedly procuring the drugs from Mumbai, authorities said.