Hyderabad's specialized EAGLE Force, in collaboration with S.R. Nagar police, executed a precise interception at Nature Cure Hospital MMTS railway station on the evening of January 5, 2026, apprehending a 17-year-old boy from Mumbai who was carrying 10 kilograms of high-grade ganja concealed in his luggage, with the seized contraband estimated to fetch around Rs 5 lakh on the underground market.

The operation highlighted an alarming evolution in the operational playbook of Mumbai-centric drug syndicates, which have increasingly turned to recruiting impressionable and economically disadvantaged juveniles as mules to ferry narcotics across state lines, banking on their youthful appearance to slip past heightened vigilance at key transit points like railway stations and bus terminals.

Responding to credible tip-offs, the joint team zeroed in on the teenager moments before he could board a Mumbai-bound train, conducting a thorough search of his distinctive sky-blue travel bag that yielded five neatly packaged bundles of ganja secured with layers of brown adhesive tape, alongside supplementary items that provided critical insights into the broader trafficking ecosystem.

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Interrogation and preliminary probes unveiled a meticulously coordinated chain: the minor, employed as a lowly-paid tempo cleaner in Mumbai and hailing from impoverished circumstances, was enticed by prime accused Hazi Shafiullah Shaik with a paltry Rs 1,500 remuneration to undertake what was falsely presented as a routine vehicle transport assignment to Odisha in late December 2025.

After being directed to Malkangiri for pickup by intermediary Mehfuz, the boy was rerouted to Hyderabad on January 4, handed the loaded bag at the station with explicit instructions to deliver it to Shaik's mother-in-law—referred to only as Khala—in Mumbai, prompting authorities to invoke stringent NDPS Act provisions alongside child exploitation clauses under the Juvenile Justice Act while launching an intensive pursuit of the three adult masterminds still at large.

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