BHUBANESWAR: Fight over the drug trade is clearly spilling onto the streets of the State Capital now. The murder of a 37-year-old man in the Unit 8 area on Friday evening is not only a grim pointer to the flourishing business but also to the dwindling fear of police.
The top bosses of the Twin City Police Commissionerate may have unveiled numerous slum outreach programmes in last one year but much of it ended up being for optics only as the trade is clearly running from these settlements, and right under the nose of the police.
Friday’s murder was a glaring example. The victim, P Subhrat Rao, a resident of Narayan Basti under Capital Police limits, was killed at about 10 pm as a couple which peddled drugs bludgeoned him to death in full public view, without a care for police action.
Rao, once an addict with criminal antecedents, had come out of a rehabilitation centre recently. He previously was a drug peddler too but ran afoul of the couple which was selling brown sugar to engineering college students. The accused - identified as Ranju and Kanha - are still at large even 24 hours after the sensational incident.
Police sources said the accused duo had used the victim’s old clients to push their trade which the latter resisted but ended up paying with his life. Sources said, students of two prominent private engineering colleges were clients of Rao’s brown sugar business. However, the couple started using his contacts after he quit the trade which sent him on a path of conflict with the duo.
Locals say brown sugar and ganja trade has been flourishing in the area but police have turned a blind eye. “It has turned into a cottage industry of sorts but no one is bothered although the contraband is easily available now,” said a local.
A resident said his relative’s daughter, student of a private college in the city started consuming drugs under peer pressure. “A few days back, she suffered from drug overdose and was admitted to ICU of a hospital,” he added.
Another local recounted how he was threatened at gun point by a drug peddler who even vandalized his car when he protested such business in the area. “I lodged a complaint with Khandagiri police station in this regard but to no avail,” he added.