A team of 13 police officials, who ventured into the forests in Malampuzha of Palakkad for a ganja plantation raid, found themselves stranded and a search party had to be sent to locate them. The officials were later rescued by the search team, which comprised forest officials, and the police. People from the tribal community who were settled in the area found the missing officers and later in the evening, they came out of the forest.
The 13-member team, headed by Narcotic Deputy Superintendent of Police (DySp) Sreenivas ventured into the forest early morning on October 8, Friday,. They went to the Malampuzha-Walayar forest region after getting information on large ganja plantations inside the forest. By afternoon, however, they reportedly lost their way and got stranded.
The officials, by evening, informed their colleagues that they got stuck in the forests and were lost. They also said that they spent the night sitting atop a rock.
Based on the information, two groups of search teams ventured into the forest from Walayar and Kava in Malampuzha respectively to bring them back. One of the search teams that went from Walayar had to face some difficulties on the way due to wild elephants. The other team went from Malampuzha and was able to find the stranded officials.
The stranded police officials were able to contact authorities over the phone. They had informed the media that they were waiting on top of a rock for the rescue team.
It was a month ago in Palakkad district that the police seized 200 kg of ganja from a group of people. A few days after that, another 183 kg was seized from Nilambur of Malappuram district. There were reports recently that many of the accused persons in ganja smuggling case that's been caught in Andhra Pradesh were from Kerala.
In 2020 in Kerala, 4,958 cases were registered under Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act. In 2019 there were 9,245 cases.