In gory drug bust, milk of human kindness

The local anti-narcotic cell proved that it not just nabs people but also rescues them occasionally. On August 7, a team of cops ended the 20-hour-long ordeal of two toddlers, aged one-and a-half and three, who had been left locked up on their own while their father, a drug peddler, went about selling his wares.

However, the peddler, a Ghana national, was killed in a police chase and his wife is in jail awaiting trial on charges of drug-dealing. The toddlers were left locked up in their Nalasopara house without anything to eat or drink. Their father had left the home the previous day to deliver 100 grams of mephedrone but the deal, a decoy op by the cops, went bust, and he died in the ensuing police chase. When the police reached his home over 20 hours later, they found the house locked but were alerted by the sound of a child crying inside.

After great difficulty the police team managed to enter the flat and saw the two babies who had turned the kitchen upside down presumably looking for food or water.

In the first week of August the anti-narcotic cell arrested a man from Santacruz with mephedrone and decided to lay a trap to arrest his partner, Jackson Ben alias Joe Izzikil, 40. The anti-narcotic team called Ben near Nagla Bunder, Gaimukh, in Thane posing as customers. Ben reached the spot on his bike with a packet of 100 grams of mephedrone but when the officer who had laid the trap stepped forward and confiscated his bike keys just as he was parking it, Ben took off towards a thicket of trees a few meters away. He jumped over a pipeline as the cops chased him and later tried to jump from a high compound wall but fell and died. The police recovered the mephedrone and also his passport. Though it was a Ghana passport, the cops have registered him as Nigerian. They later found that his wife had been arrested by the Mumbai police in a drug bust.

An officer from Thane ANC told Hindustan Times, “He was declared dead at around 8.30 am, after which we began to look for his house so we could gather more evidence and notify the family about his death. We went to Byculla jail to meet his wife who provided us with the address but we were unaware about the presence of the children. Moreover, the address she gave us was an incorrect one which delayed us further. We then began questioning his partner who could only give us some vague landmark in Nalasopara.”

Police inspector from Anti Narcotic cell, Girish Bane, says when the cops finally located the building Ben stayed in, they found his second floor flat locked. “We were just trying to figure out what to do next when we heard scratching sounds as if someone was trying to open the door from the inside but was unable to. We began asking in Marathi, who they were, but got no response. This went on for some time and then we heard a child’s cry which is when we figured out there was child inside. The child was trying to speak in a language that we did not understand. We then went out and found a Nigerian who could tell us what the child was saying. Through him we realised there were two small children inside. We then decided not to break the door as they might get hurt.”

Inspector Bane says for the next 30 minutes, between the cops and the 3-year-old girl, they kept trying to open the door from the inside by which time one of their team members had located a duplicate key maker. They entered at 2.30 am finally and found pots and pans all over the kitchen floor of the 2-room flat. “The lady constable accompanying us, Vaishanavi Paranjpe, immediately went down to the market, got a shop owner to open his shop at that hour and give us some milk. For all of us it became rather emotional when we saw the three-year-old snatching the milk from us and giving it to her brother who was crying constantly. We didn’t know their language but when Paranjpe brought food and fed both of them, they cuddled up to her,” said Bane. They have since been sent to a children’s home at Dombivali where they have also been given a pair of new clothes.

Assistant commissioner of Police, S Patil said, “Ben and his family were staying in a pathetic condition and because he dealt in illegal stuff, none of the neighbours bothered to do anything until our team reached,” said assistant commissioner of police S Patil.

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