Bandra GRP arrest charas supplier from Uttarakhand

Mumbai GRP arrested Sonam Bodh after a three-day stakeout in Uttarakhand; he supplied charas to peddlers, earning ₹2 lakh monthly.

MUMBAI: After three days of pretending to be tourists in Uttarakhand during a stakeout, the Bandra Government Railway Police (GRP) arrested a man on Wednesday for supplying charas to peddlers in Mumbai.

Bandra GRP arrest charas supplier from Uttarakhand

The events leading to his arrest began in May 2023, when the Mumbai Central GRP had arrested a peddler, Mohammed Shaikh, 24, with charas worth ₹10 lakh while checking passengers’ luggage. According to the GRP officials, he was travelling from Delhi to Mumbai when he was arrested for possession of the banned substance.

Upon interrogating Shaikh, the GRP officers came to know of Vicky Kalyani, a Navi Mumbai resident, who acted as a middleman between the supplier and the peddler. After evading arrest for several months, Kalyani was arrested in August this year, and he was brought in by the officers for questioning. After searching his house, the officers found that he was in possession of charas worth many lakhs of rupees. The police learnt that Kalyan was in touch with someone who supplied him from Kanol in Uttarakhand.

“All we knew that the man’s name was Sonam Bodh whose mother owned a small cafe in Kanol’s Maal Road which is frequented by tourists,” said a police officer from GRP crime branch.

Last week, a team of officers left for Kanol. They set up a stakeout for three days pretending to be tourists and gathered information about Bodh while keeping a watch for him around his mother’s cafe. On Wednesday, the police apprehended Bodh and brought him to the city.

“Bodh told us that after he lost his job during the COVID-19 lockdown, he met Vicky Kalyan, who brainwashed him into procuring charas and supplying it to him to be peddled in Mumbai,” added the officer. Bodh told the police that he used to get ₹2 lakh every month from Vicky for supplying the contraband material to him.