Police arrested four young men late on Thursday night inside an abandoned factory at Hindmotor, a neighbourhood of Uttarpara in Hooghly district, West Bengal.[1][2] Officers said they found the men standing in near-total darkness with several bags and detained them at once.[1] The four are Pintu Basak, Laltu Hazra, Rajkumar Mistri and Shubham Mukherjee, who police said live in Chandannagar and Bhadreswar.[1][3][4][5]

Acting on a confidential tip, the detective department of the Chandannagar Police Commissionerate and Uttarpara police station searched the disused plant, identified as the former Hindustan Motors factory.[6] They recovered about 30 kilograms of cannabis, called ganja locally, packed in a school bag and ten shoulder bags.[1][7][5] Deputy Commissioner of Police for Serampore, Arnab Biswas, said a case had been registered under the NDPS Act, India’s main narcotics law.[1] TheWall reported that the four were sent to court on Friday.[1] Onkar Bangla, published the same day, said they were to be produced in court that day and that police would seek custody for further questioning.[7]

Investigators said the cannabis had been carried by train from Odisha for sale in the Chandannagar commissionerate area.[1][3][5] A handover of the bags at Hindmotor was planned, and police said they stopped it before it happened.[1] They put the market value of the seized ganja at about 2.5 lakh rupees, roughly 250,000 rupees.[1][3][5] Biswas said officers were still checking who else was involved in the trade and whether the arrested men had earlier criminal records.[1] Chandannagar police called the seizure a major success ahead of Kali Puja and Jagaddhatri Puja.[1][3]

Senior police officers were present at the scene.[2]

The four were produced in court on Friday and the request for police custody was granted.[5]