Araria (Bihar), Nov 14 Six men were arrested in Bihar’s Araria district with 4.08 kg of smack and chemicals used in its manufacture, worth over Rs 25 crore in the international market, police said on Saturday.
The arrests were made during raids at three locations under ‘Operation Prahar’, a special drive against narcotics trafficking on Friday, SP Jitendra Kumar said.
“Four of the arrested accused hail from West Bengal’s Malda district, while two are residents of Araria. Police also seized a black Scorpio without a registration number, six mobile phones and a digital weighing machine”, he said.
In the first operation, police arrested Ismail Sheikh, a Malda resident, near the Hadiabada toll plaza on NH-27 and recovered 812 grams of smack from him.
His interrogation led to the arrest of Riyaz Ansari from Jogbani.
In another operation, police intercepted a bus coming from Purnea and recovered 1.416 kg of smack from Rinku Mahaldar, also a resident of Malda.
Subsequently, a joint team of the Araria police and the District Intelligence Unit intercepted a suspicious Scorpio on NH-27.
A search led to the recovery of 1.852 kg of crude smack, 50 kg of sodium carbonate powder, a container of acid, five litres of distilled water and packing materials.
Three persons — Nabeerul, Ramjani Mahaldar, both from Malda, and Scorpio driver Mukesh Kumar, a resident of Farbisganj — were arrested in this operation.
The SP said preliminary investigations had indicated links between the organised interstate drug trafficking network and an international syndicate.
He also said interrogation revealed that 1 kg of seized crude material could be used to manufacture at least 10 kg of marketable smack.
Officials of the district police said the market value of the seized 4.08 kg of smack and chemicals used in its manufacture is estimated to be over Rs 25 crore.
Further raids are underway to identify and arrest other members of the network and investigate its backward and forward linkages.
All six accused have been sent to judicial custody, they added.
(PTI News)
