Sonbhadra Police Seize Over a Quintal of Ganja; Two Held

Sonbhadra police arrested two men and recovered two quintals and 850 grams of ganja from an XUV during a check on the Murdhwa-Rantola road, superintendent of police Abhishek Verma said, estimating the drug alone above Rs 1 crore and the full recovery near Rs 1.1 crore with the vehicle.

Pipri station personnel were checking suspicious vehicles about two kilometres from Murdhwa when the XUV allegedly tried to turn and flee after spotting the team. Officers surrounded and stopped the vehicle. Ganja was found concealed under the rear seat and in the boot, packed in 195 packets, police said. The accused were identified as Umesh Ahirwar, 23, and Mahipal Pal, 23, both residents of Mahoba district.

Fake number plates were allegedly fitted on the vehicle to confuse checks, the SP's account said. A case was registered at Pipri under NDPS Act sections 8, 20, 27A, 29 and 60 and Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita sections 318(4), 336(2), 336(3) and 340(2). All claims about prior trips and payment remain interrogation material until tested in court.

During questioning, police said, the two alleged they had been asked to move ganja from Odisha to Mahoba for Rs 20,000 each per trip and that they had delivered consignments once or twice earlier. They allegedly left Odisha on 29 September with the load now seized. Investigators are working to identify other members of the network named in that account.

Sonbhadra's forest and highway belt has long been a transit corridor for narcotics moving between eastern source areas and Bundelkhand or further west. Highway teams treat sudden U-turns near check points as a flag for a full stop. Thursday's public version follows that template: a flight attempt, a surround, a hidden load, and fake plates.

The two accused will face remand and NDPS process at Pipri and the courts that take the case. Counsel and families from Mahoba will deal with bail strategy under the stringent narcotics law. Police have not named a kingpin in the first briefing; the verified haul is the 195 packets, the XUV, the two men in custody, and the continuing hunt for handlers on the Odisha and Mahoba ends.

Pipri's jurisdiction covers several highway approaches where Odisha-bound and Bundelkhand-bound traffic overlaps. Officers said the XUV's behaviour near Murdhwa matched earlier training points: abrupt reversal after spotting khaki is treated as reason enough for a hard stop even before the boot is opened. Once the packets came out, the NDPS case wrote itself on weight alone.

Laboratory weighing and sampling will fix the exact narcotic content for the charge sheet. Until then the station's field figure of two quintals and 850 grams across 195 packets is the number in the public FIR narrative. The vehicle's fake plates and the alleged Rs 20,000-per-trip fee are separate strands that need corroboration beyond the accused's own words.

For now the district's confirmed facts are the Murdhwa-Rantola stop, the weight and packet count, the estimated value, the NDPS and BNS sections, and SP Verma's statement that the plates were swapped to dodge detection.