Chennai: Nearly a year after Mathura police told the court that rats ate cannabis from a police station warehouse, in an equally strange submission, Chennai police claimed that rodents were responsible for nibbling away 11 kilograms of ganja kept in a police warehouse. The bizarre reply not only left the cops red-faced but after that the court acquitted the two accused allegedly responsible for peddling the drug.
According to the police Kalpana from Salem and Kumari and Nagamani from Visakhapatnam were arrested for selling ganja at the Chennai Koyambedu bus station in 2018. Chennai police had claimed that they seized 30 kg of ganja from them. The two accused were produced before the court on Saturday along with the ganja that was recovered from them.
When the case came up for hearing before the special court dealing with drug trafficking, the judge noticed that ganja was lesser than the quantity claimed by the police. He ordered to weigh the material and it was found there were only 19 kilograms of ganja. When the judge asked the police about the rest of the material police claimed that it was eaten by rodents.
When the judge asked for an explanation police came out with a bizarre reply. Police informed the court that the seized ganja was kept in the police station for testing but since the condition of the police station was dilapidated due to rain, rats ate up a large quantity of ganja, reducing it from 30 kg to 19 kg. The angry judge then acquitted the accused duo on the ground that police had failed to produce substantial evidence against them.
A similar case surfaced in Uttar Pradesh late last year where police had told Mathura court that rats had nibbled 581 kg of cannabis stored in the police station warehouses.
