Khurda: The sale and consumption of brown sugar in Khurda town has gradually turned it into a hub of the narcotics trade due to the nexus between the mafia and unscrupulous officials.
The Barunei Temple Square, Tantisahi Square, Hada Chhak, Gopinath Temple Square, Khurda Stadium Square, Town Hall Square, the New Bus Stand area and the Gurujang Housing Board Colony area under Khurda Town police limits are distribution points of narcotics.
Sources said the mafia have engaged many youngsters from poor families in the business and provided them with motorcycles to deliver narcotic consignments. The illicit business is flourishing in these areas as a large population of college students make an ideal market for the peddlers.
Reliable sources said the mafia have also engaged women in the narcotics trade to avoid suspicion and all deals are done over the phone, while the kingpin remains elusive. Moreover, those who raise voices against the illicit trade get threats from the mafia.
The narcotics trade is being run after greasing the palms of both the police and excise officials, who remain silent to the sale and consumption of brown sugar. The cops in order to gain public applause sometimes make symbolic arrests.
But Khurda Town police station inspector-in-charge Ranjit Sahu refuted the allegations. He said, “Crackdowns are carried out immediately whenever it comes to our notice.”
Excise sleuths had also arrested a drug peddler from Khurda town and seized 175 gram of brown sugar worth Rs 20 lakh from him June 13, 2017. Besides a joint team of excise officials and the police had seized 105 gram of brown sugar worth Rs 21 lakh from Christiansahi in the town in December, 2017.
Meanwhile, social activists have alleged that such seizures are just the tip of the iceberg and that drug peddling has increased alarmingly with more youngsters and adolescents falling prey to it.
They said that lack of an institutionalised intelligence framework is the major driver behind organised narcotics trafficking.
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