Chatra: Police in Jharkhand’s Chatra district have arrested five persons allegedly involved in the smuggling of banned brown sugar, officials said on Monday.
During the operation, narcotics worth around Rs 6 lakh were seized along with a car used for transportation and five mobile phones, police said.
The arrests followed a tip-off received by Superintendent of Police Sumit Kumar Agrawal. Acting on the information, a special team from the Sadar police station was formed under the supervision of SDPO (Sadar) Sandeep Suman.
According to police sources, intelligence inputs indicated that brown sugar was being traded from a car parked in the Turag forest area along the Chatra–Itkhori main road, which falls under the Sadar police station limits.
After confirming the information, the police team cordoned off the area and conducted a raid, arresting five traffickers red-handed while they were allegedly engaged in the illegal trade.
Search operations led to the recovery of brown sugar packed in several small packets, the vehicle used in the crime, and mobile phones of different brands from the accused.
The arrested individuals have been identified as Rupesh Kumar Dangi of Manghaniya village in Mayurhand, Neeraj Kumar Yadav, Prakash Kumar Dangi, and Laxman Kumar Dangi of Dhodhi village in Mayurhand, and Rakesh Kumar Dangi of Lowagada village under Chatra Sadar police station.
Preliminary interrogation revealed that the accused were acting as middlemen in the narcotics supply chain, procuring brown sugar and opium from major suppliers and distributing them across multiple police station areas in Chatra and neighbouring Hazaribagh districts.
The Superintendent of Police said the seized car is registered in the name of a resident of Hazaribagh district and investigations are underway to establish the link between the vehicle owner and the arrested accused. Efforts are also being made to identify and arrest the key masterminds behind the drug network.
With inputs from IANS