Surat, Sep 22 (PTI) Three men who decided to peddle drugs they found rather than report it to police were arrested on Friday in Surat in Gujarat allegedly with 8.31 kilograms of charas worth Rs 4.15 crore, an official said.

Two of the accused had found the contraband in eight packets on Hazira beach here a month ago and had given some part of it to the third accused to sell to addicts, Surat police commissioner Ajay Tomar said.

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He identified the accused as Pinkesh Patel (26) of Hazira village, Abhishek Patel (26) of Jahangirpura here and their common friend Jatin Bhagat (26), a resident of Rander.

"Around a month back, Pinkesh and Abhishek found eight unclaimed packets on the sea shore. Since they had seen media reports in the past that such unclaimed packets usually contain contraband sold for crores of rupees, they decided to keep these packets and did not inform police," Tomar told reporters.

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Police received a tip off that a person in Rander area was selling high purity Afghan charas for the last 25 days, leading to the arrest of Bhagat, from whom 2.17 kilograms of charas worth Rs 1.08 crore was recovered, Tomar said.

"Bhagat had already sold some stock before he was nabbed. He provided information on Pinkesh and Abhishek, who had given nearly 2 kg of charas to Bhagat and hid the remaining six packets containing 6.14 kg at a secluded place near Pinkesh's house," he said.

These packets were recovered, he said, adding that their description match with those found by the Border Security Force off Jakhau coast in the recent past.

Probe by the BSF and police have found that such packets, which are found at regular intervals of the coast of Gujarat, are dumped into the sea by smugglers when they are afraid of getting caught.

While Pinkesh works as a crane operator at a company at Hazira port, Abhishek is a labour supplier at another company having its plant in the same area. Bhagat is unemployed and has been held in the past on charges of murder and prohibition-related crimes, as per police.

(The above story is verified and authored by Press Trust of India (PTI) staff. PTI, India’s premier news agency, employs more than 400 journalists and 500 stringers to cover almost every district and small town in India.. The views appearing in the above post do not reflect the opinions of LatestLY)