Five persons, including a film actor, were arrested from a flat, near Kadavanthra, by the city police in a raid conducted in the middle of the night on Saturday on charges of possessing cocaine.
The accused were held from a flat owned by businessman Mohammad Nisham, who was arrested from Thrissur earlier on charges of ‘attempted murder’ for deliberately ramming a man with his car.
Actor Shine Tom, 31, a native of Thrissur; Reshma Rangaswami, 26, of Kozhikode; Bessy Sylvester, 22, of Bangalore; Sneha Babu, 25, of Kanjirappilly; and Tincy, 25, of Kollam; were arrested from a duplex in the apartment complex.
The police recovered 7 gm of cocaine, worth over Rs.10 lakh, in the flat and at least four of them were found to have been under the influence of the drug, the police said.
Blessy, who works as a designer for a magazine, has been renting out Nisham’s flat since the first week of January.
The police said that she was a friend of Reshma and the two had invited the rest for a party on Friday night.
The police raided the flat around 12.30 a.m. on Saturday following a tip-off received by Ernakulam Assistant Commissioner S.T. Suresh Kumar.
Under surveillance
“We had information that a few premium flats in Kochi were becoming hot centres for consumption of drugs such as cocaine. Our investigation focused on locating where a party of this nature was going on to catch the accused red-handed,” Assistant Commissioner Suresh Kumar said. “The apartment was on surveillance all day. Blessy was staying at the flat and the other accused arrived there at different times,” circle inspector Francis Shelby said.
The police burst into the flat after midnight and searched the place. “The accused at first denied using cocaine. We found 10 packets of cocaine, together weighing about 7 gm, in one woman’s pocket,” he said. They allegedly smoked the drug on cigarettes.
Blood samples taken
The police found six cigarette butts and a few cigarette packs in the flat. An officer from the Excise Department arrived at the flat to verify that the drug was cocaine. Blood samples of the accused were taken and sent to the laboratory for examination.
