Two persons were arrested and 1.6 quintals of hemp seized from their possession near Nuabazaar in Binka town on Wednesday morning.
They have been identified as Ajay Amanta (30) of Handpa in Angul and Pranabandhu Mishra (23) of Sonepur town. Two of their accomplices managed to escape.
According to reports, Binka police intercepted a taxi being driven by Pranabandhu Mishra and on search, recovered the contraband. The car was on its way from Phalsagura in Boudh with the contraband and police are trying to ascertain the place to where it was headed for. Preliminary investigation revealed that the car is owned by one Laxmi Jagdala.
In a separate incident, Bargarh Sadar police have arrested six persons and recovered from them 27 kg of hemp, seven mobile phones and `27,000 in cash on Wednesday. The accused were travelling in a car which was intercepted by police at Veer Chhack on NH-6. They were on their way to Jabalpur in Madhya Pradesh from Boudh. Those arrested have been identified as Biswajit Pradhan and Ramesh Manihira of Boudh, Sambhu Soni, Raju Sahu, Ashok Rajak and Narayan Das, all of Jabalpur.