Kozhikode: Mohammed Haneefa, an accused in a major drug trafficking case who escaped from a train while being taken to Delhi for evidence collection, has been arrested by the police.
According to reports, a police team apprehended him in a daring operation aboard a train near the Andhra Pradesh-Karnataka border.
Haneefa had escaped from the custody of the Mukkam Police on May 23. He fled from a train at Vadodara in Gujarat while being escorted to Delhi as part of the investigation. Following his escape, police launched an intensive manhunt. He was eventually tracked down with the assistance of the Railway Police and the Railway Protection Force (RPF).
A four-member police team led by Inspector Nibin Joy had accompanied the accused for the evidence-gathering exercise. In February, police seized three kilograms of MDMA from a rented house in Manassery, Mukkam, which Haneefa, a native of Pullambadi in Nileshwaram, had taken on rent. Earlier, he had also been arrested by the DANSAF squad with 500 grams of MDMA. Interrogation led investigators to the larger drug stash at the house.
The arrest was made by a DANSAF team led by Kozhikode Rural SP T Farash, acting on confidential information. Police had been closely monitoring Haneefa, who is considered one of the key wholesale suppliers of narcotics in Kerala. They received information that he had recently arrived from Delhi and arrested him while he was allegedly on his way to distribute drugs. Police had earlier stated that Haneefa operated from Delhi and was involved in smuggling large quantities of narcotics into Kerala.