The Special Task Force (STF) wing of Odisha police made a seizure of brown sugar (heroin) valued at more than Rs one crore in the black market and arrested two drug peddlers from a highway side village in Angul district.
The STF sleuths flanked by Angul Police conducted simultaneous raids on Monday morning and arrested two drug peddlers, including an interstate drug dealer.
The STF said on Tuesday that the arrested drug peddlers Rakibul Sekh (43), native of Farakka in West Bengal, and Bijay Birbarma (26), resident of Trinath Colony under Talcher police station area, were nabbed following the raids.
Contraband brown sugar (heroin) weighing 1.120 kg and other incriminating materials were recovered and seized from their possession. The banned substances are valued at around Rs 1.12 crore in black market.
They were later today remanded to judicial custody after the Additional District Judge-cum-Special Judge in Talcher dismissed their bail applications.
Brown sugar is a local/crude version of heroin (chemical name Di-acetyl Morphine). In Odisha, brown sugar is generally trafficked from Murshidabad, Nadia and Burdwan districts of West Bengal via Midnapore and Jaleswar using road or rail routes. The Lalgola area of Murshidabad is considered to be a brown sugar production hub, STF informed in a statement.
Unlike the ganja (which is voluminous and heavy and takes a lot of space for transportation), the trafficking of brown sugar is very easy because it is small in volume and weighs less. In addition, it does not have any specific smell like ganja, making the job of the law enforcement agencies difficult.
A special drive against narcotic drugs is continuing and the STF has seized more than 76 kg of brown sugar/heroin and 202 grams of cocaine since 2020, the agency added.