Sri Lanka Navy seized over 98kg of Kerala cannabis in the seas north of Kovilam, Jaffna today and arrested three suspects.
In a statement released on the Navy website, the Navy told, “Sri Lanka Navy has increased patrols and has been conducting regular operations in the island waters to ward off wide-ranging nefarious activities, including smuggling drugs via sea routes.”
During a similar operation today, the Inshore Patrol Craft P 011 of the Northern Naval Command intercepted a suspicious dinghy in seas north of Kovilam while heading ashore, the Navy further said.
“It is suspected that the smugglers might have retrieved the stock of Kerala cannabis to the dinghy at the International Maritime Boundary Line (IMBL) to smuggle them into the island. Meanwhile, the street value of the seized stock of Kerala cannabis is believed to be about Rs. 29 million.”
The smuggling of cannabis (Ganja) has significantly increased after the end of the war.
In 2016, Tamil Net reported that the Sri Lankan military under Gotabaya Rajapaksa, the former ‘Defence Secretary’ of occupying Colombo, deployed narcotics as a tool of genocidal war against Eelam Tamils. It was largely the Mannar area, which functioned as the hub for drug smuggling during the Mahinda Rajapaksa regime. The transition to Jaffna has taken place during the rule of Maithiripala Sirisena and Ranil Wickramasinghe.
