Myanmar market for Indian drugs

Shillong, Aug 28 : Customs officials today revealed that Myanmar has become a destination for sedatives from India.

Following the haul of Methaqualone crystals, used for making sedatives, on Friday in Shillong from a Mizoram-bound vehicle, it was revealed that the stash valued at Rs 1 crore was meant to be smuggled to Myanmar, said S.K. Chakraborty, additional commissioner of customs (preventive), Northeast.

The customs official said the drugs that are manufactured by some south Indian companies find their way first to Guwahati and subsequently smuggled to Myanmar through Mizoram and other Northeast states sharing a border with Myanmar.

Two persons from Mizoram were arrested in connection with Friday’s haul. They were booked under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance Act, 1985, and the Customs Act, 1962.

Besides, Methaqualone crystals of over 50kg, officials seized 9.48 lakh Actichid and Reobro tablets that contain pseudoephedrine, which is a raw material for manufacturing amphetamine tablets.

The Methaqualone crystals are used to manufacture the sedative Mandrax.

The customs officials said they were expecting more arrests in the days to come.

AR arrests two rebels at Moreh, 1kg opium seized in Arunachal

 IMPHAL/ITANAGAR: Assam Rifles personnel arrested two suspected cadres of the banned Kanglei Yawol Kanna Lup (KYKL) in an operation at Manipur's Moreh town bordering Myanmar. Acting on reports of the presence of militants at New Zalinmoul of the border town, AR troops launched an operation at the area and apprehended two cadres on Saturday.

The AR troops found a 9mm carbine with magazine and bullets, a Chinese hand grenade, two mobile phones, extortion notes and Indian currency of Rs 17,000 on the two cadres. Later, the two cadres-self styled privates Th Thoiba and Kh Koireng from Thoubal district-were handed over to the police.

Meanwhile, Assam Rifles apprehended a drug peddler in Tirap district of Arunachal Pradesh and seized one kg opium from him. AR personnel had launched a search operation at Thincha-Sanliam road axis on Sunday, which led to the apprehension of one Along Rukhet of Lazu circle, a communique said on Monday. One kg opium costing around Rs 30,000 was seized from the individual. The apprehension of the individual is a major blow to the drug trafficking racket in Lazu and Khonsa, the AR communique added.

Nacotics seized in Shillong town

Shillong, Aug 28 :  Narcotics worth more than Rs one Crore was seized by customs officials in Shillong and the transporters were arrested, officials said today.

Acting on a tip-off, a passenger vehicle bound for Mizoram was stopped on Friday at Mawlai here and later 50 kg of Methaqualone crystals and more than nine lakh Actichid and Reobro tablets were seized, they said. Additional Commissioner (NER) S K Chakraborty said that Mizoram police have been alerted for the arrest of the people involved in the illegal transportation of the narcotics.

They said the substances were forced into the illegal international market routing through the NE from where it is produced legally in the country.

Denying divulging the names of the transporters, Chakraborty said they duo were placed under judicial custody and charged under the Customs Act 1962 and also under the narcotic drugs and psychotropic substance act 1985.

Why fraudsters get away with IT job rackets

Deepa Kurup

In recent months, a substantial number of cases have been reported where placement consultants have fooled gullible youngsters.

PUBLIC EYEThey dupe youngsters with jobs in firms set up by fly-by-night operators

Log on to the jobs/recruitment section of any of the classified websites, and you're zapped with curious promises: “backdoor openings” to large MNCs, core technology training-cum-job, “hi-tech job” for the inexperienced, pay packets to match. And then there’s the usual catch — the “commitment amount”, “training fee”, consultant fees or a non-refundable “security deposit” — all stated upfront on the unofficial rate card in this frenetic recruitment bazaar.

Download the PDF of 'Job frauds in tech sector on the rise' here

Indeed, the term “job market” is very apt, for the jobs are obviously “fixed” by placement consultants, for a hefty price, of course: this price varies from just under a lakh to up to Rs. 3 lakh. It works on a simple principle: the lesser your marks or the less impressive your resume, the more you shell out. Similar “fixing”, multiple sources told The Hindu, happens for college placements in less-known institutes, where the process is more covertly managed.

But even as industry freshers or job aspirants have come to terms with the way this bazaar operates — after all, it is just an extension of the college admission tout racket — an intricate web of greed, deceit and fraud operates in the foreground, eager to cash in on the desperation of young jobseekers in a market, which is stagnant at best and in many cases even on a decline.

In recent months, a substantial number of cases have been reported where placement consultants have fooled gullible youngsters (mostly freshers) by landing them jobs that even pay salaries for a month or two. Often in cahoots with these consultants, fly-by-night operators hire in batches to build credibility, even offer rudimentary training in basic computer skills and some certifications. To appear well-established these companies rent out a modest office, put up a website and deck it up to make the company appear like an old market player. In one case in Bangalore, the company chose the name of an Italian company Electrosys, pretending to be an old and established subsidiary of the firm. The first batch is recruited through walk-ins, but successive batches are all “paid jobs”. And then when their numbers reach critical mass – typically between 100 and 200 employees – these companies vamoose with all the “security deposits”.

Underreported

A simple web search throws up a farrago of such cases. Many of the victims, when contacted, were reluctant to go public. A substantial number had not registered a police complaint, an indication that such cases are underreported. Some insisted that IT companies tend to “track resumes”, and a complaint may end up tarnishing their record. These fears are baseless, it turns out, as industry sources say, there is no collated registry or tracking. However, they concede that there indeed are “backdoor entries” into the biggest companies, largely orchestrated by unscrupulous human resources (HR) personnel.

Arbitrariness

Besides job portals and placement consultants, large numbers of IT recruitments are through referrals, paving the way for arbitrariness and, consequently, fraud. Jagdeesh (name changed) lodged a police complaint when in June last year his company in Jeevan Bima Nagar shut shop overnight, leaving him and around 140 others in the lurch. Till date, none have got their money back, and the case remains unresolved. Today, he has a job, but is saddled with two large loans: one which he took for his engineering course, and the other which his mother took (by mortgaging her jewellery) to pay his way through to his first job.

“The warning signs are there,” explains Pradeep, “but in our desperation we tend not to see them.” A placement executive strung him along with an offer he couldn’t refuse, even staging a fake meeting and exchanging emails from what appeared to be the ID of a large MNC. Having paid the money, Pradeep was repeatedly stonewalled by being told that the joining dates were extended owing to financial losses. Worse, Pradeep had been put in touch with the consultant through a placement officer in his college, a tier-III institute in Andhra Pradesh. In a similar racket busted by the Bangalore police last year, the consultant even gave candidates a whirlwind tour of Wipro’s premises.

A 2011 report by Ernst and Young report titled ' Ever increasing fraud risks in the IT and ITeS sector' takes note of this trend. It points out that an entire entire recruitment team at the Indian subsidiary of a large IT company was sacked for allegedly accepting bribes from prospective employees and recruitment consultants. Saket Bhartia, president of the Bangalore chapter of the Association of Certified Fraud examiners says that from an IT/ITeS perspective, recruitment would be the top-most frauds reported today. This has to do with the rapid growth this sector has seen.

These frauds he says are carried out in collusion between HR officials in big companies, placement consultancies and training institutes. In some cases he adds they have found that HR officials in big IT companies have their family members running training and certification institutes that promise placements into the same company. This kind of fixing also happens in campuses, he adds.

A senior professor at a leading engineering college here said that another factor contributing to this malaise is the fact that most engineering colleges are not imparting adequate training to students, leaving them "hugely unprepared" for the industry. Often, these students have no option but to turn to training-cum-placements institutes in order to make inroads into the industry. "It isn't just about soft skills. Most students passing out lack in basic technical skills, so they cannot make it," he says. The unregulated and rapid proliferation of engineering colleges has meant that students are entering a market that is extremely competitive. "And everyone wants an IT job; partly because there are very little jobs in other trades. So they turn to these agents for help," explains the professor. This makes the entire ecosystem ripe for fraud.

Andhra initiative

A substantial number of these fraudsters have been traced to smaller towns in Andhra Pradesh. Following a slew of cases in Andhra Pradesh, the government there appointed a committee, along with industry associations, to study and suggest ways to protect job aspirants. Sources in the Bangalore police concede that IT-related recruitment frauds have seen a “steady, not yet alarming” rise. The numbers they say are underreported as most of them are reluctant to report the crime. Yet, both the Karnataka government and the industry are sitting on their hands.

Unaware of rights

Suresh Kodoor, a member of the IT and ITeS Employees Centre, a support organisation for employees in the technology and tech services sector, says that victims are unaware of their rights and scared to report when defrauded. “This is encouraged by the absence of appropriate laws, loopholes in existing rules, blanket exemption from labour laws, and a lenient attitude by law enforcing authorities,” he says.

The IT industry in Bangalore, and elsewhere, is unorganised and largely unregulated. Further, employees have no safety net as companies have been exempt from crucial labour laws, such as the Industrial Employment Standing Orders Act. This means that there is no proper inventory of these companies, and they are not required to make any disclosures, making it difficult to track these operators. In one of the fraud cases, it appeared that the company was not even registered.

Officials in the State Labour Department say they hope that the move to revoke the exemptions given to the IT sector will bring in more accountability as any workplace employing over 50 will be required to register with the department, and make their rules of service amply clear. This will also increase awareness about employee-employer rights and entitlements, they believe.

One held with drugs worth Rs 5 crore

DIMAPUR, Aug 14 – In one of the biggest drug hauls ever, Kohima police manning the Khuzama checkgate seized a consignment of brown sugar and psychotropic tablets estimated to be worth Rs 5 crore in the international market.

According to police, personnel manning Khuzama checkgate intercepted a person identified as one Nurul Haque of Dharmanagar Halahali of Tripura, travelling to Dimapur from Imphal on Thursday. They recovered the contraband drugs from his possession.

The consignment was detected by the police personnel while frisking the luggage of passengers travelling in a tourist vehicle from Imphal to Dimapur, the sources informed.

The seizure, one of the biggest so far, contained around two kg of brown sugar, 100 gm of suspected heroin and 4,000 psychotropic tablets. The international market value of the drugs would be not less than Rs 5 crore while even in the local market the value would be around Rs 100 lakh, sources said.

With the frequent seizures of such contraband substances, it is learnt that a full investigation is in progress to find out the network of people involved in the smuggling of these drugs from Manipur to other parts of the country via Kohima.

Myanmar narcotics smuggler held in Silchar

 SILCHAR: BSF and Assam Police, in a joint operation, nabbed a Myanmar national from this southern Assam town, along with narcotics and Indian currency, on Tuesday night.

A senior official of BSF's Mizoram-Cachar Frontier on Wednesday said a joint operation was conducted by the troops of the border guard's Mashimpur (Silchar)-based frontier headquarter and 142 Battalion BSF, in association with police, after inputs by BSF's intelligence wing. The smuggler was caught from Rangerkhari locality of Silchar town. Thirty grams of narcotics, suspected to be heroin, and Indian currency of Rs 44,500 was found on him.

The arrested smuggler was identified as Lungakaselav (50), a resident of Hakha village in Lairam Chingtai district of Myanmar.

After questioning, it was learnt that Lungakaselav crossed over to India on July 28 through Indo-Myanmar border in Mizoram and stayed at different places, including Aizawl, till August 6 in search of buyers.

It is learnt that a Mizo woman provided him shelter in Aizawl and also arranged a guide for him to reach Silchar. This was aimed at marketing of narcotics smuggled from Myanmar in this part of Assam.

Lungakaselav, along with the seized items, was handed over to Assam Police for further investigation. On Wednesday, he was produced in court, which remanded him in police custody for two days.

Fears of opium poppy farming in Kerala

The possible illegal use of opium as an intoxicant and apprehensions about farming of opium poppy are worrying law enforcement agencies in Kerala.

This follows intelligence inputs that some migrant labourers may be smuggling in ganja from northern parts of the country and some others are using opium.

For the first time, the State Excise Department has come out with an advertisement seeking information from the general public on opium poppy farming. It has appointed a nodal officer to collect information on farming. The Additional Excise Commission (Enforcement) will coordinate the intelligence gathering exercise.

Opium is obtained from the fruit of opium poppy (Papaver somniferum) before it ripens. Longitudinal incisions are made on the fruit wall to collect the milky white latex. The dried latex, which turns black, contains the alkaline morphine, and is processed to produce heroin.

According to a senior functionary of the Excise Department, opium poppy farming is mostly confined to States such as Madhya Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan and there is no information on its farming in South India. However, there were intelligence inputs stating that the practice of using opium could be there among some migrant workers. Hence, the public notice, he said.

There were also intelligence alerts that there could be attempts to smuggle in narcotic substances, including ganja, from States such as Assam, Bihar and Northeastern States. The advertisement, released eight days ago, had not yielded any results till now, he said.

Sujana Balan, Associate Professor of Pharmacology in the Nangelil Ayurveda College at Kothamangalam, said opium poppy plants required cold climate to grow. Though there was no known cultivation of plants with white flowers in Kerala, a hybrid variety of the species with lilac flowers could survive in the high ranges of the State such as Munnar. The hybrid variety also contained equal amount of morphine, she said.

Opium induces sleep and is considered as the best analgesic. In Ayurveda, both opium and ganja are included in Madakari group.

High-profile sex racket busted

Pune, Aug 3 : Officials of the Social Security Cell on Tuesday night busted a high-profile sex racket and arrested a couple and two small-time TV actresses who chose to be a part of the flesh trade to earn an extra buck.

The arrested couple has been identified as husband-wife duo of Dinesh and Smita Dhiwar. The two actresses had worked in several Hindi serials as junior artists.

The officials said the couple, which was running an independent agency for providing junior artists to TV serials in Mumbai, had kept the two actresses at a city hotel, and were charging Rs 50,000 for two hours from their prospective clients.

“One of the arrested actresses told us that she has acted in serials like Sathiya, Sasural Simran Ka and Tarak Mehta Ka Ulta Chasma,” Police Inspector Bhanupratap Barge of SSC said. “We received information on Tuesday night that Dhiwars had kept the actresses in a city hotel to do sex business. One of our police officials contacted the couple and expressed his desire to seek their service.”

Barge said that Smita instructed the officer that she would take Rs 50,000 for a two-hour service and asked him to deposit Rs 10,000 into her husband’s account. “As per her instructions, we deposited Rs 10,000 into the said account and on Tuesday night sent a decoy customer to the hotel in Shivajinagar where the actresses were kept,” Barge said.

A trap was laid near the hotel and after the decoy signalled the officials, they stormed into the room and arrested the couple and the actresses. “Investigations revealed that the couple, which provides small-time artists to serials, is also involved activities related to the casting couch, and we are investigating the case further,” Barge said.  “We have booked them under relevant sections of Protection of Immoral Trafficking Act (PITA) and they have been remanded in police custody till August 6.”