Sri Lanka Navy seized over 183kg of Kerala cannabis at Murungan Panniwettuwan roadblock in Mannar, Northern Province on 28th August 2021.
“The operation also led to the apprehension of 02 suspects involved in this illegal act and a lorry being used for the racket,” the Sri Lankan Navy said in a press release.
The street value of Kerala cannabis’s seized stock is over 55 million Sri Lankan Rupees.
The smuggling of cannabis (Ganja) has significantly increased after the end of the war in 2009. 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. The Mannar area largely 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.
