Sandalwood drugs case: Police have arrested 13 people, will nab others says Bommai

PTI, Sep 18, 2020, 8:39 PM IST

Bengaluru: Police have so far arrested 13 people in connection with the drug peddling and substance abuse case and trap has been laid to nab others involved, Karnataka Home Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Friday.

Rejecting leader of the opposition in the state assembly Siddaramaiah’s allegations that police were acting as “puppets” of the government, the minister, defending the investigation into the case, said officials have been given a free hand and were not functioning under any influence.

Bommai described the allegations as baseless.

“If he has any evidence, let him give it, we will get it investigated too,” the minister said in a statement.

“If there was proper investigation into the 2018 drugs haul, when Siddaramaiah was the Chief Minister, several main drug peddlers could have been arrested and things would have been under control,” he said.

“..it is said that senior officials tied the hands of investigating offices then,” Bommai said.

Siddaramaiah on Thursday had said that a judicial commission should be constituted to probe the drug peddling and substance abuse case, as he alleged that police are functioning like “puppets” in the hands of the government.

“It has been just two weeks since the current investigation into the drugs case began and so far 13 people have been arrested in two cases and the trap has been laid to nab others involved,” Bommai said.

He said repeated suspicion regarding the investigatio, on which the government was transparent, reflects that there is a conspiracy to protect some one or mislead the investigation.

“Expressing suspicion about the police which is investigating the case, seems like helping those involved in drugs,” he said.

The minister said every one should cooperate with the investigation. The government will continue the probe strictly and legitimately and the police will not lose morale from such statements, he added.

CCB police investigation into the drugs case has led to arrests of prominent people including actresses Ragini Dwivedi, Sanjjanaa Galrani, and high-end party planner Viren Khanna among others.

However, main accused Shiva Prakash, a Kannada film producer and Aditya Alva, who is the son of former minister late Jeevaraj Alva, are still at large, according to sources.