Kochi becoming drug-trade hub: Kerala Govt

Kochi is fast turning into a hub of the international drug trade, the Kerala Government told the High Court. The Prosecution told the court on Tuesday that the infamous Kochi cocaine case currently under investigation had links with the international drug mafia. While opposing the bail pleas filed by the five accused in the cocaine case, the Prosecution told the court that the information collected from the Nigerian, Okowe Chigozie Collins, who had supplied the cocaine seized from the accused in the Kochi case, had been shocking and this indicated that drug trade was growing fast in Kochi.

The case pertains to the arrest of new generation Malayalam film actor Shine Tom Chacko (31) and four young women — designer Reshma Rangaswamy (26), assistant film director Blessy Sylvester (22), model Tinsy Babu (25) and travel firm owner Sneha Babu (25) — from a luxury apartment in Kochi in an early morning raid on January 31 for using and possessing cocaine.

The Prosecution told the High Court that the connection between Collins and the accused had been established as it was Reshma and Blessy who had taken the Nigerian from the railway station to the apartment in a car. Collins was arrested from Goa in a joint operation by the Goa police and a police team from Kochi on March 4. The Government said that the case called for a detailed investigation which was going on and granting bail to the accused at this stage could hamper that process. The court rejected the bail applications of the accused upholding the Prosecution’s argument that they could misuse the freedom if they were released.

Shine Tom Chacko had told the court and the media that he had visited the Kochi apartment on January 31 on an invitation from assistant director Blessy in order to discuss a new film project. However, the Prosecution opposed this argument saying that what happened at the flat was not cinema discussion but it was a “smokers’ party”.

Though the police are still holding firm to their original theory that Shine Tom and the four young women had used cocaine, the blood samples collected from all the five had tested negative for the drug in the analyses carried out at the Chemical Examination laboratory in Kakkanad off Kochi earlier.

This had forced the police to claim that the Kakkanad lab was not equipped to conduct such tests. They had wanted to do DNA profiling of the accused to connect them with the traces of cocaine found on the cigarette butts collected from the flat. However, the Ernakulam Principal Sessions Court had rejected the police’s plea in this regard.’