The Kochi police investigating the case of the recent cocaine seizure concluded its evidence-gathering exercise in Goa on Monday after they failed to find the source of the drug there even as ‘Ferrari Dad’ Muhammad Nisham was brought back to Thrissur from Thirunalveli in Tamil Nadu and Bangalore where the police had taken him to learn about his ‘connections’.
The efforts of the Kochi police to find the source in Goa of the cocaine seized on January 31 from a luxury apartment owned by Nisham in Kochi failed presumably after the seizure and related developments in Kerala became big news there, prompting the peddler who had sold the drug to go into hiding. The police had taken Reshma Rangaswamy and Blessy Sylvester, two of the four young women arrested in the cocaine case, to different beaches they had visited and the cottages where they had stayed during the New Year days hoping to track down the peddler but it is now suspected that he could have gone abroad after learning about the developments in Kochi.
Reshma, a Kozhikode-based designer, and Blessy, a Bangalore-based assistant film director, had told the police that they had bought the cocaine from one Franko on a Goa beach. The others arrested from the Kochi flat for possessing and using cocaine were new generation Malayalam film actor Shine Tom Chacko, model Tinsy Babu and travel firm owner Sneha Babu.
It is said that though the two young women had told the police that they had bought the drug from a peddler on a Goa beach, they failed to identify the beach. The police have to produce all the five accused in a Kochi court on Tuesday by 11.00 AM Tuesday as the period for which they were left in the police’s custody would end by then.
The Intelligence wing of the State police has reportedly informed the Government that the cocaine case could get weakened due to the inability of the investigators to find solid evidences. Sources in the police said the examination of the CCTV footages collected from the apartment complex also had not yielded any valid leads.
Actor Shine Chacko and the four young women were arrested on the early morning of January 31 from a flat owned by Nisham in Kochi where a “smoke party” was being held. Shine’s father Chacko has, however, claimed that his son had not used the cocaine and that he had gone to the flat after being invited by Blessy for discussions on a film project.
Meanwhile, the Peramangalam police in Thrissur district brought back businessman Muhammad Nisham who had on January 29 tried to murder a security guard of the Sobha City apartment complex where he was staying by ramming his Hummer SUV into him, to Thrissur after a four-day-long evidence-gathering exercise at Thirunalveli in Tamil Nadu and Bangalore.
One report said that the police were stunned to see the six-acre, sprawling warehouse he had in Thirunalveli where his Kings Beedi company was headquartered. The police had taken Nisham to these places to learn about his connections outside Kerala in the context of the seizure of cocaine from his Kochi flat. Sources in the police said that while the search in Thirunalveli had yielded nothing substantial that in Bangalore was comparatively fruitful.
The police had found four luxury vehicles owned by him there, they said. Nisham had said that he had 12 cars but sources now say that he probably has nearly 20 luxury vehicles the cost of which could run into several crores of rupees. Sources confirmed that the Kochi flat from where cocaine was seized was owned by Nisham and he had connections with those arrested. Nisham had earned the nickname, ‘Ferrari Dad’, after he was booked for allowing his seven-year-old son to drive a Ferrari. He has to be produced before a court in Kunnamkulam, Thrissur on Wednesday.