Khurda: A joint team comprising special task force (STF) of Crime Branch and Begunia police Saturday busted a spurious tobacco manufacturing unit at Beguniapada in Khurda district.
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Police have detained its proprietor Manas Prusti for interrogation.
The STF squad was led by inspector Ashok Kumar Giri. Huge cache of spurious tobacco worth lakhs of rupees, manufacturing machines, labels and empty cans of leading brands were seized during the raid on its godown, an official source of the STF informed.
“While continuing searches at different places, another STF team led by inspector Sunita Pradhan and Begunia police recovered huge quantities of duplicate zarda from a shop in Pichukula. The owner of the shop Manoj Kumar Sahu has also been detained for questioning,” Begunia police station IIC Rashmi Ranjan Sahu expressed.
Notably, after Bhadrak and Jajpur districts, Khurda is now emerging as a hub for manufacturing and distribution of spurious tobacco products in Odisha.
PNN
