The Pune Rural police identified the arrested men as Shadab Riaz Shaikh, Dnyandev Shinde and Hrushikesh Chitra, all residents of Parner in Ahilyanagar district, Mahesh Gaikwad of Shrigonda, also in Ahilyanagar district; and Shyam Gujar, the police constable.A Pune Rural police team had received a tip-off about two people travelling to Pune on a motorcycle and carrying mephedrone — a synthetic stimulant drug — with them. Acting on this information, the team laid a trap and intercepted the motorcycle in Shirur along the Pune-Ahilyanagar Road late in the night of Jan 19 and detained the duo. A search led to the recovery of 700g of Alprazolam, instead of mephedrone as was tipped off, from the two men, the police said.Gill said, “During their questioning about the source of the drug, the duo told the police that a substantial quantity of the same drug was kept in a house in Parner taluka. The police then raided the house and seized another 10kg of Alprazolam. Two more suspects were detained from the spot.”He said, “Constable Gujar’s name cropped up during the further questioning of all the four men as they told the police that they had sourced the drug from him. Our team then arrested Gujar.”Asked about the source from where Gujar procured Alprazolam, Gill said, “As of now, we are working on two angles to establish this detail. We are verifying the likelihood of Gujar pilferaging a part of the drugs recently seized by the Ahilyanagar police to push the same in the illegal market through the other accomplices. We are also examining if he procured the drug from someone else with a good connection with a pharmaceutical company.“The police are expecting to secure more details from the custodial interrogation of the five arrested men.
