BHUBANESWAR: In the biggest drug haul in recent times, the Special Task Force (STF) of Crime Branch seized 4.486 kg brown sugar worth Rs 4.5 crore and arrested three drug peddlers from Rasulgarh Square here on Friday.
The accused are Debashis Behera alias Rinku, SK Kausar Ali and Prabir Kumar Singh alias Situ of Balasore district. On a tip-off, STF officers conducted a raid, apprehended the three persons and seized an SUV from them. Informing this to mediapersons, DGP Abhay said the brown sugar seized by STF on Friday is the biggest haul by Odisha Police in the recent times.
Preliminary investigation suggests that the accused were procuring brown sugar from Murshidabad in West Bengal and transporting it to Odisha via Kolkata and Kharagpur. Odisha Police will approach their counterparts in Murshidabad and Kolkata to bust the network.
The DGP informed that all agencies of Odisha Police had seized less than six kg brown sugar between 2016 and 2019. Addl DGP (Crime Branch) SK Priyadarshi and DIG (STF) Jai Narayan Pankaj were also present at the press meet. STF has seized 12.25 kg of brown sugar, registered 19 cases and arrested 39 drug peddlers between January and June 19 this year.
On March 18, the agency had seized 2.729 kg brown sugar worth Rs 2.7 crore and arrested two drug peddlers during a raid within Nilgiri police limits in Balasore. Similarly, the STF seized 1.74 kg brown sugar worth Rs 1.7 crore and arrested three drug peddlers from Pipili on March 11.
Odisha Police's biggest seizure was on May 30, 1999, when over 9 kg brown sugar was seized in Kazi Bazar area within Lalbag police limits in Cuttack. Senior IPS officer Satyajit Mohanty was then the SP of Cuttack.