Mother tries to smuggle drugs into prison for son in Karnataka

Bengaluru, June 17 (IANS) In a shocking case, the Karnataka Police have arrested a woman on charges of trying to smuggle drugs into the Central Prison of Parappana Agrahara in Bengaluru for her jailed son, police said on Friday.

The arrested woman has been identified as Parveen Taj, a resident of Shikaripalya in Bengaluru. According to police, the accused woman was acting as per the instruction of her jailed son.

Mohammad Bilal, son of Parveen Taj, is a habitual offender and was arrested by the Konanakunte police in Bengaluru in connection with a robbery case in 2020. He is in prison as an undertrial.

Parveen Taj had come to visit her son in the jail on June 13. She gave a cloth bag to her son during the visit. The police officers who inspected the bag found 200 grams of Hashish oil.

The police immediately secured the woman and handed her to the Parappana Agrahara police station. The police said that the seized Hashish oil is worth Rs 5 lakh.

Police said that a carbon sheet was placed inside the cloth bag and drug substance was hidden under a layer of the bag. However, the metal detector signalled the presence of suspicious material in the bag. When the prison staff checked it thoroughly they found a hidden drug substance.

Parveen Taj has told the police during the investigation that her son called her through someone's phone and threatened her to hand over his clothes in a bag which will be given by one of his friends.

The accused has claimed that as per the instructions of her son, she had brought his clothes in the given bag. She has pleaded to the police that she didn't have any idea about the presence of drugs inside the bag.

The police have tracked the number from which her son had made a call from the prison. A hunt for the friend who had handed over the bag in which the drug was hidden has been launched by the police.

The police probe revealed that Mohammad Bilal is not a drug addict and he was intending to sell the drug substance in the prison.

The prison authorities have lodged 11 cases in connection with supply of drugs in the Central Prison and arrested the accused persons, including police officers. The police are further investigating the case.