BHUBANESWAR : THE State Capital is slowly turning into a haven of drug abuse with adulterated brown sugar packets easily available in different parts of the City. The contraband is mixed with various chemicals like urea to dilute the composition and increase the quantity and gradually passed on to addicts. The drugs which are freely available here are manufactured in Afghanistan and transported to Odisha through Pakistan, Kashmir, Nepal Bangladesh and West Bengal.
The contraband first reaches Balasore district which has a considerable presence of Bangladeshi migrants. Drug peddlers in the Capital City procure brown sugar from Balasore and sell it to a targeted set of customers. The procurement is done in limited quantities on a weekly basis to avoid the notice of enforcement agencies. Reliable sources said per day sale of brown sugar in the City is at least `5 lakh and 90 per cent of the customers belong to the age group of 15 to 25. This has become a dangerous trend as high school students have also taken up the habit in the last couple of years.
A former excise inspector attributed the reason to easy availability and cheap price of 0.1 gram packets ranging between `150 and `300. On May 6, a final year student of BTech was admitted to Capital Hospital here after he complained of severe stomach ache. He died within a few hours allegedly due to drug overdose. The peddler who supplies drugs to the youth was assaulted by the deceased’s friends and later handed over to police. The incident triggered a huge public backlash and police inaction against drug peddlers was criticised. The hue and cry put the cops on their toes and frequent raids were conducted at locations vulnerable to drug sale across the City. During the ongoing drive, the Quick Action Team and Laxmi Sagar, Capital and Kharavel Nagar police have arrested four persons and seized marijuana and brown sugar in commercial quantity from them. On Tuesday, the QAT laid a trap and nabbed a Jajpur-based man who was residing in Mancheswar area. He was selling drugs in the City by posing as an auto-rickshaw driver, police sources said. The accused was booked under Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic substances Act and remanded in judicial custody.