‘Rich’ students found to be drug buyers

Police found that clients of the two Nigerian nationals, who were arrested for drug peddling on Sunday, are mostly students of corporate colleges and top educational institutions and belong to rich families.They themselves have been hooked on to drugs, police said.Okechnkwu Ohazurike (30), the prime accused, hails from Owerri Imo in Nigeria and sells ready-made garments in Mumbai for his livelihood while Sakiry Oladotum Akinsalo (53) hails from Lagos in Nigeria and runs a spare parts business in Hyderabad and is a resident of Sainikpuri.Police said that Ohazurike used to attract customers, especially students, and sell them drugs.He used to carry out all his transactions via social networking sites like Facebook, from Mumbai.He used to stay in touch with his student clients through e-mails, police said.“Ohazurike never met his customers directly.The both accused have been supplying drugs to a section of students in the city,” said Jubilee Hills inspector K Narsing Rao.Also, Ohazurike was arrested by Cyberabad police a few months ago while peddling drugs.The inspector said that a probe is underway to gather the phone numbers of a few customers from the mobile phones of the accused that have been seized.Gmail ids of two students have been found from the seized mobile phones.One of the two students is said to be the son of a managing director of an IT company located in Srinagar colony and another, son of a contractor.  

‘Drugged’ with Dad’s Money:  In a previous incident, two drug peddlers - Mwinyi Kassim Mwaka alias Poyz of Tanzania and Shihab-El-Din alias Mohammed of Sudan - who were arrested by SR Nagar police, also confessed that they had come to the city to supply narcotics to students on their request, said SR Nagar inspector P Krishna Murthy.Students who belong to high-class families get addicted to narcotics and hence purchase them on a regular basis, police said.CCS deputy commissioner of police J Satyanarayana, who is investigating as many as eight cases related to drug peddling, said that the drug peddlers target a particular student group and attract them by offering the drug at `4,000 per gram.“After a few people from the Telugu film industry and bureaucrats being involved in purchase of drugs, the Nigerian drug peddlers have now started to supply drugs to a particular section of students of high-class families, most of them who are residents of Banjara Hills and Jubilee Hills,” he added.Similarly, two other drug peddlers who were arrested by Sanjeevareddy Nagar police station about a week ago also revealed that their clients too were mostly students.

By Mouli Mareedu

moulimareedu@gmail.com