Sulthan Bathery: Police and the District Anti-Narcotics Special Action Force arrested three youths on charges of smuggling 35.8 gm of MDMA, a synthetic narcotic drug. They were nabbed during a vehicle inspection at the interstate border check-post at Muthanga on Sunday. The trio was later produced before court and remanded in judicial custody.

The accused were identified as Puthanpurakkal House P V Vishnav, 20, a native of Mylampadi near Meenangadi; Puthiyettikandi Veettil P K Muhammed Ashique, 21, a native of Krishnagiri near Sulthan Bathery; and Pulikkal House P Adil Ramees, 20, a native of Athimoola near Meenangadi, a police communique said here.

According to the police, the three were travelling from Bengaluru to Meenangadi in a KSRTC bus on Sunday evening when they were intercepted. Police are probing the interstate links of the accused and examining whether they are part of a drug network supplying narcotic substances to Wayanad and other districts in the Malabar region.

The trio were produced before the Judicial First-Class Magistrate Court in Sulthan Bathery, which remanded them in judicial custody.

Police officials said surveillance and inspections of interstate buses passing through the Muthanga check-post from Karnataka were intensified, as drug smugglers were increasingly using public transport to evade detection. Private vehicles, too, have come under increased police scrutiny in recent weeks, leading to a rise in drug seizures from such vehicles, they said.

The police team involved in the operation included Sub-Inspector Jeswin Joy and Additional Sub-Inspectors Abdul Gafoor and P M Shaji, among others.