Excise arrest 50 youth at Gampola Facebook drug party

By Kurulu Koojana Kariyakarawana

Over 50 underage youths were arrested and at least 12 of them who were found to be in the possession of cannabis were produced in courts when Excise raided a Facebook drug party held in Gampola on Saturday evening.

The Hatton Excise Station officials on information searched a hotel in Gampola Town, where a party had been organized to cater to about 300 young men and women.

The officials deployed a male and a female excise officials as decoys in their pre-surveillance probe and learnt that many participants were using various intoxicants including ganja.

The Hatton Excise officials with the backing of several teams from Gampola and Nuwara Eliya Excise Stations then raided the premises and took the party goers into custody and found that a number of youths were intoxicated, out of which 50 were teenagers below the age of 18.

 They also took 12 youth into custody along with cannabis in their possession. The arrested 12 were produced before the Hatton Magistrate and were ordered to be remanded.
 OIC Hatton Excise Station Chief Inspector S.D.Senaka Silva conducted the raid with Excise Inspectors G.L.N. Hemantha, A.W.Premasiri and D.S. Weerasinghe with Excise Corporals R.M.C.Rajapaksa,D.M.A.Dissanayake, Excise Guards N.S Herath, A.M.M.K.A. Bandara and Excise Driver A.V.G. Kulasuriya with OIC Gampola Excise Station C.I.T.H.M.M.S. Herath, Inspectors K.G.Kulathilaka and L H.Hettiarachchi, Excise Sergeant Major R.M.K.A.S. Ranasinghe, Corporal S.J. Herath and Guard Prabath Samaratunga with Nuwara Eliya Excise Guards Aravinda Sanka and Ravindu Thilaka with Women Guards Malika Herath and Gayani on the instructions of Central Province Assistant Excise Commissioner Upul Seneviratne.

The other group of underage youths was handed over to their parents after being strictly warned.