Court raps customs for shoddy probe, acquits man accused of importing ecstacy

An NDPS trial court in Chennai, on Monday, acquitted a 29year-old Malaysian-Indian accused by the Chennai airport customs of smuggling in 100 tablets of the drug ecstasy from Germany through foreign post during the first wave of Covid19 pandemic.

- SIDDHARTH PRABHAKAR

Strongly criticising the shoddy investigation by customs, the judge said that the agency had tried to "fix the accused on surmises" and failed to establish even fundamental facts in the case.

Customs had booked the case under NDPS Act in June 2020 when they found a parcel received from Germany had the tablets weighing 160g. The parcel did not have sender details and was marked to Erode resident P Kavikumar (then 25 years old).

Over the course of their investigation, customs alleged that he had ordered the drugs from Germany and raked up other cases of ordering ganja from England and getting the parcels delivered to his mother in Erode and brother in Coimbatore.