The Gujarat Police’s State Monitoring Cell (SMC) has arrested three people and seized a commercial quantity of banned narcotics, including LSD paper and ganja, in an operation near Navsari, officials said on Tuesday.
Acting on specific intelligence, an SMC team led by Police Inspector Chandrashekhar Panara conducted a raid on January 12 at Khetla Aapa tea stall, near the lower end of the Vesma overbridge on National Highway 48 along the Navsari–Palsana stretch.
Police said they had received a tip-off that a man identified as Janish Patel would be supplying LSD strips at the tea stall and would arrive on a blue-and-silver Hero Honda Passion Plus motorcycle. Based on this information, the team laid a trap and apprehended three accused — Janish Mukeshbhai Patel, Bhavya Makwan and Uttsav Patel, all residents of Navsari district.
During the search, officers recovered 44 LSD paper strips weighing 2.30 grams, valued at ₹1.32 lakh, and 33.8 grams of ganja worth ₹1,690. Other items were also seized, taking the total value of the recovered contraband to ₹1.97 lakh.
Police said the seized LSD falls under commercial quantity as defined by the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. A fourth accused, Vasudev Ishwar Patil of Vijalpore in Jalalpore taluka, has been named in the case and is currently absconding.
A case was registered on January 13 at the State Monitoring Cell police station in Gandhinagar under relevant sections of the NDPS Act, 1985, and the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Senior officials said further investigation is underway to trace the source of the drugs and to identify links to a larger drug trafficking network operating in south Gujarat.