Mangaluru : Three persons have arrested and 800 g ganja, weapons and five mobile phones, worth over Rs. 50,000 sized by the Excise Department personnel on Saturday in Bajal,Mangaluru.

The officials gave the names of those arrested as Chandu alias Venkatesh Jalligudde, Avinash Padil and Naufal Jalligudde.

The accused had allegedly packed ganja in packets of 50 gm, 200 gm and 20 gm for sale. The seized items also included an electronic weighing machine.

Deputy Superintendents of Excise Ashalata and Chandrappa, inspectors Amaranath S.S. Bhandary and other personnel, said Deputy Commissioner of Excise, Dakshina Kannada, L.A. Manjunath.

Mr. Manjunath told that the department also has the mandate under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, and had been conducting raids and other operations under the Act. However, the department was not going to the media about the operations, he said.

Since the elections to zilla panchayats and taluk panchayats are fast approaching, the department has escalated its operations, to prevent unauthorised stock/sale/ distribution of liquor as well as check sale/ consumption of drugs, Mr. Manjunath said. It had established control rooms in every taluk to work round the clock to check violations, he said.

Since he took over the office about six months back, Mr. Manjunath said, two cases were registered under the NDPS Act.

Besides, about 10 to 12 raids had been conducted in several locations of Mangaluru and surrounding areas to check consumption/ sale of narcotic substances. He had also sent out teams to remote Western Ghat regions in the district to conduct combing operations to check ganja cultivation, Mr. Manjunath added.