BERHAMPUR: Around 800 kg of ganja, hidden under the driver's cabin of an empty truck, were seized by police at Singipur on Aska-Bhanjanagar road in Ganjam district 's Gangapur police limits on Monday.Three persons - Rohit Kumar Gajendra, 42, G Kalibabu, 38 and Sushant Kumar Digal, 32 - were arrested under NDPS (Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances) Act, police said."Besides ganja, weighing 794.135 kg, the truck and its documents, three cellphones, Rs 3.24 lakh and instruments to open the cabin were seized from the accused persons," said sub-divisional police officer(SDPO), Bhanjanagar , Utkal Keshari Das. It was one of the biggest ganja seizures in the recent months in the district, police said. He said the preliminary investigation revealed that the contraband was illegally transported from Mohana in Gajapati district to New Delhi."We got a tip-off about a consignment of ganja headed to New Delhi via Gangapur. The truck was intercepted near Singipur," said the SDPO. As many as 25 packets of ganja, packed in polythene bags, were hidden inside driver's cabin. The cabin was specially designed to keep the ganja bags, he said. It was not for the first time that the ganja was smuggled from Ganjam and Gajapati districts to New Delhi. Special cell of Delhi police had seized around 540 kg of marijuana while the consignment was illegally transported in similar manner from Berhampur in February last year. Delhi police had arrested two persons for their alleged involvement.In November 2017, police had seized 1,100 kg of ganja, which was transported in a mini-truck from Raipanka under Gajapati district's Adava police station. Two persons were arrested. Though the accused persons did not disclose the destination, police suspected the narcotic substances were being transported to New Delhi.Though Ganjam is not a production centre for ganja, but Berhampur and its adjoining areas have become a transit point for illegal transportation of the contraband, said a police officer. The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in collaboration with local police had seized over 1,712-kg ganja from a house at Suraj Bihar in Berhampur in June 2015.

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