Drug seizure: Kerala campuses under siege Premium

Government Polytechnic College, Kalamassery, drug raid reveals deep-rooted campus drug menace, sparking political controversy and enforcement action.

It was an unusual sight when the main gate of the Government Polytechnic College, Kalamassery, which remains closed even during the daytime, was found wide open on the night of March 13. The barrier gate, hardly 50 metres from the entrance, beyond which vehicles are not allowed on the sprawling campus spread over 50 acres, had also been kept raised.

Then, soon after 9 p.m., a flurry of private vehicles sped through the main entrance and past the barrier gate before coming to a screeching halt in front of a two-storey off-white building with a brown border that serves as the men’s hostel, Periyar.

A large posse of plainclothesmen rushed inside. While a couple of them positioned themselves at the grilled entrance blocking any attempted exit, a few even climbed up a ladder to reach the first floor unannounced. Soon, it emerged that it was a raid based on an intelligence input that drugs were likely to be hoarded in the hostel to spice up next day’s Holi celebrations on the campus.

“They were briefed to hit all the 20-odd rooms simultaneously giving little time for shifting or hiding the contraband, if any,” says K.A. Abdul Salam, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Narcotic Cell, Ernakulam, who oversaw the raid along with P.V. Baby, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Thrikkakara. The entire raid was also videographed.

By the time the raid was wrapped up the next day around 4 a.m., the police had seized nearly 2 kg of suspected ganja from two rooms ( 1.9 kg from a room and 9.7 g from the other) and arrested three final year students — M. Akash, R. Abhiraj, and Adithyan — all in their 20s. The ganja, which was seized from the hostel, was accounted as of commercial quantity, which, if convicted, would bring a long jail term for the accused.

What ensued was a political slugfest as allegations emerged that Abhiraj, who was elected to the post of college union general secretary as a candidate of the Students Federation of India (SFI), managed to get off lightly as he along with Adithyan were released on bail on the ground that the two had been found possessing only a small quantity of ganja. Leaders of the Communist Party of India (Marxist) and the Opposition Congress traded charges accusing each other of turning campuses into hubs of drugs.

The SFI later expelled Abhiraj from the organisation and alleged that Akash was an active Kerala Students Union (KSU) worker. The same allegation was directed at two former students —Mohammed Aashiq and K.S. Shalik — who were arrested a day later. Since then, R. Anuraj, a final-year mechanical engineering student, and two migrant workers, who were accused of supplying ganja to the students, were arrested taking the number of arrests to eight. All four students remain suspended by the college academic council.