Karal Marx L By

Express News Service

VILLUPURAM: A 47-year-old was arrested by the Organized Crime Intelligence Unit on Friday, for reportedly cultivating marijuana on his terrace. In these days of drought and agricultural woes, he managed to grow the difficult-to-care-for plant, allegedly for over eight months now.

K Kannan (47), a mixie and fan mechanic, owned a house at Subrayalu Street in V Marudhur. The youngest of four children, Kannan never got married and was allegedly ditched by his siblings who cheated him while sharing property. After being deserted, Kannan took to alcohol. Two decades ago, he took to marijuana, allegedly in an attempt to lessen his drinking. Continued abuse destroyed Kannan’s health. When the man became unreliable owing to the addiction, he lost clients. This affected his finances and the man found that he could not fund the substance abuse.

As part of cost cutting, Kannan picked some seeds out of the marijuana he bought and tried his hand with agriculture. Some trial, error and lessons later, he reportedly made quite the garden on his dilapidated rooftop.

Meanwhile, the man was gradually becoming a public nuisance. Initally, trances and strange behaviour made people avoid him. Later, his eccentricities became more pronounced - he would reportedly wear anklets in the middle of the night and give Bharatanatiyam performance, exasperating the neighbours who concluded that the marijuana had left his brain addled.

On Friday afternoon, a team of OCIU officials, led by inspector Jerald, raided Kannan’s house after receiving a tip-off. They found the crop on the terrace and called in the police and the narcotics intelligence bureau (NIB), who took over.

Speaking to the Express, a NIB official said that the terrace had about 50 plants, weighing around 2.4 kg. This may fetch up to `24,000 in the black market.