Three drug-case suspects held after car flees police and crashes into Metro barricade in Kamthi

Three men wanted in a drug trafficking case were taken into custody in Kamthi, Nagpur, in the early hours after a police chase ended with their car crashing into a barricade at a Metro rail construction site and overturning.

The accused were travelling in a Tata Harrier. Police signalled them to stop on the Dragon Palace Temple road, but the driver sped up and tried to escape.

The operation began with a tip-off. New Kamthi police inspector Nitin Rathod learnt that Md Shariq Md Razique, wanted in a drug trafficking case registered under the NDPS Act, was in the Yashodhara Nagar area in a Tata Harrier with two associates. Acting on the information, a police team laid a trap from 5 am.

Some time later, the suspect car was seen heading from Ghorpad road through Yashodhara Nagar towards Kanhan. The team signalled it to stop near the railway underpass on the Dragon Palace Temple road. Shariq was driving the car. On seeing the police, he accelerated and fled towards Kamthi.

Metro rail construction was under way on the road. A short distance on, Shariq lost control of the car, which hit a barricade at the construction site and overturned. The car was wrecked. Shariq and his associates had no chance to flee, and police caught all three.

With Shariq were Abdul Karim Md Mukeem (30) and Ghulam Yashdani Md Rashid Ansari (26). All three were wanted by police in the drug trafficking case.