The Special Task Force (STF) of the Crime Branch and Rourkela Police arrested two natives of Jharkhand and seized 10.508 kg of opium worth approximately Rs 50 lakh from them.
Acting on a tip-off, the police on Thursday raided Panposh in Sundergarh and arrested Bitu Singh Munda and Rohit Munda, natives of Khunti district of Jharkhand. During the search, prohibited materials were recovered from the accused.
Investigation revealed that Bitu, Rohit and their associates were purchasing opium from Rajasthan and then selling it to drug smugglers in Odisha and Jharkhand. STF IG Jai Narayan Pankaj said, “A case has been registered and investigation has been started. Efforts are being made to identify other members of the racket.”
India is one of the few countries where legal cultivation of opium is allowed for medicinal purposes. It is cultivated in Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. STF officials suspect that the seized opium was illegally transported from farms under legal cultivation in Madhya Pradesh.
Sources said the agency will contact Madhya Pradesh Police and the Central Narcotics Bureau (licensing and regulation authority for legal cultivation of opium) in Gwalior to trace the source of procurement of the banned substance. According to Section 18(B) of the NDPS Act, a drug dealer or peddler found with more than 2.5 kg of opium can be imprisoned for up to 20 years.
The agency has launched a special campaign against the sale of narcotics in Odisha since 2020. So far, the STF has seized more than 75 kg brown sugar/heroin, 202 gm cocaine, 123 quintals of ganja/marijuana and 14 kg opium. More than 193 drug dealers/peddlers have also been arrested.
