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8 drug smugglers arrested in Purnea
Purnea superintendent of police (SP) Sweety Sahrawat said the arrested individuals were part of a well-organised syndicate operating across several districts. Explaining the modus operandi, she said the gang had begun using crowded public transport to evade frisking and surveillance.
Purnea police have arrested eight members of a West Bengal–based drug smuggling racket allegedly involved in peddling brown sugar (heroin), cannabis and other contraband across Bihar, officials said.
Purnea superintendent of police (SP) Sweety Sahrawat said the arrested individuals were part of a well-organised syndicate operating across several districts. Explaining the modus operandi, she said the gang had begun using crowded public transport to evade frisking and surveillance.
“About 300 grams of smack has been seized from their possession. We have identified other members of the racket and they will be nabbed soon,” the SP said.
The arrested persons, hailing from Purnea and Araria districts, have been identified as Deepak Kumar Mehta, Mohammad Tabrez, Chhotu Mandal, Mohammad Nazir, Kanhaiya Kumar and Vikram Kumar, all residents of Purnea, and Roshan Kumar Jha and Neeraj Kumar Choudhary from Araria.
“All the arrested members are aged between 20 and 35 years. They have been active in the smuggling racket for the past two to three years. One of them had earlier been arrested but later secured bail,” police said.
Based on interrogation, police said the racket is centred in the Kaliachak area of Malda district in West Bengal, which serves as a major production and distribution hub for brown sugar. Recently, West Bengal police arrested the kingpin of the syndicate, Enraul Sheikh, who allegedly received consignments of raw materials from the Northeast, processed them in Kaliachak and supplied the drugs to Bihar, Jharkhand and other regions.
Police said districts in Bihar—particularly those bordering West Bengal and Nepal such as Kishanganj, Araria, Purnea, Katihar, Khagaria and Bhagalpur—are severely affected, with youths increasingly being targeted both for addiction and as carriers.
A police officer told HT that in August last year, a youth identified as Anand Raj, a resident of Khagaria, was arrested in Malda with brown sugar worth ₹1.3 crore. In October last year, a woman from Bhagalpur was also arrested in Malda with smack worth ₹1.5 crore.
Meanwhile, the Purnea SP exhorted members of civil society to work closely with the police to rein in the growing menace of narcotics.
“A sustained awareness campaign must be launched in both urban and rural areas to protect our children and youth from falling prey to drug addiction,” a school teacher in Purnea said, adding, “Even schoolchildren can be heard talking about narcotics—an ominous sign for society.”
