The Anti-Narcotics Cell of the Pune City police has arrested a 26-year-old man and seized mephedrone or ‘Meow Meow’, a stimulant drug, worth Rs 1 lakh, from his possession, officials said. The police added that they are now investigating the accused’s supply chain and distribution network.
On Tuesday, a team from the Anti-Narcotics Cell received a tip-off that a man was trying to sell mephedrone in the Rautbag area of Dhankawadi. Based on this information, they set up a trap and intercepted a man identified as Rohan Kaluram Khude, a resident of Parvati Darshan area. According to the police, Khude works at the shop of a cloth trader and had recently started a roadside stall to sell garments.
Khude was searched after completion of all formalities under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act, the police said, adding that they recovered 6.9 grams of ‘Meow Meow’, worth Rs 1.04 lakh in the illegal market, from him.
The police team subsequently placed him under arrest and an offence under NDPS Act was registered against Khude at Sahakarnagar police station. “We are looking at the supply chain and distribution network of the suspect. Primary probe suggests that he used to buy the contraband from a dealer in Mumbai and had been selling it in Pune in small packets,” a police officer said.
Mephedrone, also known as ‘Meow Meow’ or ‘White Magic’, is a synthetically manufactured stimulant of the amphetamine and cathinone category. Till the early 2010s, the drug was not included in the list of contrabands under the NDPS Act. But multiple seizures of large quantities of the drug and rising instances of its consumption as a narcotic in large cities prompted authorities to include it in the list in 2015.
