On August 29, 2024, the Kerala police shared a poster on their official social media page that appeared to be inspired by ‘Breaking Bad’, the popular American TV series about a chemistry teacher who turns to meth production. It depicted a police jeep set against a golden-hued field, replacing the show's famous trailer-turned-meth lab. The post said that Kerala police made a historic achievement of busting a synthetic drug manufacturing unit in Hyderabad and arrested its owner - a Telugu producer named Narasimha Raju.
The police traced the manufacturing unit from the arrest of a small-time drug peddler in Thrissur a month back. According to police, the unit, which functioned in an industrial area in Hyderabad, produced Methylenedioxymethamphetamine aka MDMA in the name of drugs for kidney-related ailments.
In a separate case, in September 2024, the police arrested a person from Kerala identified as Aneesh, who was into large-scale ganja farming in Maoist-hit areas of Odisha. A team of Kerala police braved extreme conditions in Odisha forest for days before zeroing in on the accused.
These high-profile arrests brought laurels for Kerala police, which are on a massive hunt against drugs in the last few years. However, National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB) data shows that such actions form only a small part of Kerala police’s anti-drug operations. As per the NCRB’s 2022 data, 93.7 % of the total arrests under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985 (NDPS) for drug-related cases are for possession for personal use while only remaining are for possession for trafficking. The number of drug peddlers arrested in 2022 were 1660 (crime rate 4.7 per lakh population) while those arrested for possession of drugs for personal use were 24959 (crime rate 70 per lakh population). This raises a pertinent question: Is the focus of the anti-drug operation shifting more towards users than peddlers?
ADGP (Law and Order) Manoj Abraham said that such high profile arrests are low as manufacturing of synthetic drugs and production of ganja happen mostly outside Kerala. According to him, synthetic drugs mostly come from places like Bengaluru and Goa while ganja arrives from farms in Odisha, Telangana, West Bengal and Bihar. He noted that, in practical terms, there is little distinction between possession for personal use and possession for sale, as many of those arrested with small quantities are peddlers themselves. An Excise officer said students are being recruited as peddlers to minimise the risk of those involved in the drug trade.
Officers in the Narcotics wing of police said that they do not specifically mention in FIR whether the possession was for use or sale. Instead the charges are listed as per sections 20 (Punishment for contravention in relation to cannabis plant and cannabis), 21 (Punishment for contravention in relation to manufactured drugs and preparations) and 22 (Punishment for contravention in relation to psychotropic substances) of NDPS Act based on the type and quantity of the narcotics. For example, a person is caught with possession of ganja, section 20 (B) is charged if the quantity is less while 20 (C) is charged for higher quantity. For drugs and psychotropic substances, section 21 and 22 are used. Here too, section B and C are included based on quantity. For ganja, up to 1 kg is considered a small quantity (bailable offense) while commercial quantity is 20 kg and above. In the case of MDMA, possession of up to 0.5 gram is considered as small quantity which is a bailable offense and above 10 grams is treated as commercial quantity.
“Peddlers are well aware of these quantity parameters. They know that if the possession of MDMA is below 0.5 grams, they can get away with a fine. More quantities are seized after arrests during inspections at their houses or hideouts. There have been demands to reduce the quantity categorised as ‘small’,” said an Excise official.
As police are taking a zero tolerance approach towards sale and use of drugs in the state, it also brought nation-wide attention for the highest number of drug-related cases. A senior police official lamented that Kerala is portrayed as a drug haven only because police are effective in cracking NDPS cases. Kerala outnumbered Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra and Punjab in 2022 with the highest number of cases registered under NDPS Act. Kerala recorded 26619 FIRs in 2022 pushing Maharashtra with 13830 cases to the second position. This year in January and February alone, Kerala registered 6878 cases under NDPS Act and arrested 7281 persons.
In some cases, police take a more lenient approach on the users, considering factors like age or their antecedents. Recently police had busted a ganja racket which was operating at the Government Polytechnic, Kalamassery in Kochi. During a midnight operation, police seized 2 kg ganja and arrested three students. Later, the police also arrested two migrant labourers for supplying ganja to the students. Though police identified more students with possession of ganja in their rooms, they did not include some students in the list of accused.
Thrikkakara ACP PV Baby said that they have added some as witnesses after ensuring no that there are no criminal antecedents. “If ganja was found in a room of 3-4 students, all could be equally charged for possession. However, some admitted that they were responsible and requested not to include their roommates in the list of accused. We have checked factors like communication history to know whether they were in contact with peddlers, their criminal antecedents, age etc. In cases of juveniles, we check whether they are first time users and mostly won’t charge cases. However, they will be kept under strict monitoring,” he said.
Kerala anti-drug operation, drug arrests, drug peddlers, drug users, Kerala police, substance abuse, drug crackdown, drug possession, anti-drug campaign