Ex-Silchar NIT student arrested in Assam for smuggling drugs

Police have identified the accused as Saig Gokhale, 24, a resident of Keval Colony in Amravati district of Maharashtra

Assam police have arrested a resident of Maharashtra from Hailakandi district for allegedly selling drugs, officials said.

(Representative Photo)

Police have identified the accused as Saig Gokhale, 24, a resident of Keval Colony in Amravati district of Maharashtra and a former student at the National Institute of Technology (NIT), Silchar.

Police said Gokhale was arrested with 20 small containers of drugs on Thursday night from a hotel in Lalpani area in Katlicherra near the Assam-Mizoram border.

“Based on the specific information, our officials went to that hotel in civil dress. The accused attempted to flee but we managed to catch him,” an official said.

Police said that Gokhale, during interrogation, confessed that he collected the drugs from a man, who he identified as Najmul Hussain, from Silchar’s Madhurbond area on Wednesday and came to Hailakandi on the same day.

“The dealings (selling and buying) happen outside the entrance gate of the institution. Every container is sold at ₹500 to the institution’s students,” Gokhale told the police.

Gokhale, a student of the Department of Electronics and Communications Engineering at NIT, Silchar, dropped out of college in 2013 and got involved with drug peddlers due to his financial condition, police said, according to the statement given by the accused. However, even after he passed the college in 2019, he continued his drug business, police said.

Authorities at NIT Silchar, however, said that they can’t identify the student. Registrar of NIT Silchar, KL Baishnab told HT that the police didn’t ask them anything about the student.