Tamil Nadu police carried out a one-day coordinated special operation against narcotic and banned substances on 3 November 2026.[1] The drive covered 38 districts and nine cities on the orders of Director General of Police Mahesh Kumar Agarwal under Crime Branch CID supervision.[2] Officers registered 283 cases and arrested 344 offenders in the operation.[1][3] The total included 64 absconding accused who were caught and 44 non-bailable warrants that were executed.[1]

Officers seized 242.2 kg of ganja and 19.8 kg of hashish alongside other drugs that are not counted as cannabis.[2] Police seized nearly 19.8 kg of hashish on the Ramanathapuram coast and arrested 34-year-old Mano of Thiruvadanai.[2] Searches of 357 trains with sniffer dogs yielded 104.36 kg of ganja as part of the operation.[2] As part of the drive, police burned 6,958 kg of ganja and 0.25 kg of methamphetamine held from earlier cases.[1]

Teams identified 3,242 drug hotspots, including 1,367 sites near educational institutions.[1] Officers searched 890 student hostels simultaneously across the state.[1] Officers checked 23,744 vehicles at state and district border checkpoints and registered 62 cases.[1] Police held 3,972 awareness programmes and inspected 175 rehabilitation centres.[2]

Police filed that hashish case at S.P. Pattinam police station near the Pasiamman temple shore under sections 8(c) read with 20(b)(ii)(C) of the NDPS Act.[1] Those checkpoint checks also recovered 4.4 kg of ganja.[1] The 175 centres inspected held 2,745 people in treatment.[1] Police said investigations had been completed in 1,770 NDPS cases and moves to freeze offenders’ assets and bank accounts were under way in 804 cases.[1]