COIMBATORE: The Salem police caught red-handed 13 persons, who gathered in an unused building and administered themselves sedative injections, on Friday.

Acting on a tip, the police team surrounded the building at Arumugam Nagar near Erumapalayam and picked up 13 persons identified as R Shanmugam (26), S Srinivasan (25), R Muniappan (25), V Vikram (24), A Akbar (26), S Brahadeeswaran (20), R Saravanan (50), M Chettiyappan (24), V Sudarson (25), B Kishore (22), M Kaushik (25), V Gauthamraj (19) and R Adhikesavan (18).

Inquiries revealed that they had bought sedative pills and administered them by mixing them with glucose. Police arrested them and seized 879 pills, 56 injections, seven cell phones, and Rs 11,130 in cash. A search is on for two more persons, who escaped from the police.

Further investigations are on to find out where they bought the pills in bulk and also to crack down on their entire network.

In another incident, the Coimbatore city police arrested two persons with 200 sedative pills and 50 grams of ganja.

During a routine patrol, the Rathinapuri police picked up Venkatesh (33) from Ganapathy in Coimbatore and Rasiappan (33) from Palladam in Tirupur, on suspicion, while the duo was standing in the Sasthiri Nagar area.

Inquiries revealed that they had sedative pills and ganja in small quantities. “As Rasiappan was running a pharmacy in Palladam, he supplied painkiller tablets to Venkatesh to be sold among college students and youth,” police said.