Bhubaneswar: Odisha Crime Branch’s Special Task Force (STF) arrested one inter-state habitual ganja trafficker named Sarat Kumar Dey Kalia, son of Ekadashi Dey of Parahati, under Myamani police station in East Bardhawan district of West Bengal).
The accused is involved in several cases and has been trafficking ganja in Odisha, West Bengal, Jharkhand, and Bihar. A case has been registered against him at Mohana police station in Odisha under Sections 20(b)(ii)(C)/25/29 NDPS Act, 1985. Later, the investigation was taken over by STF as a huge quantity of ganja (over 43 quintals), the highest seized in one case), was seized, and interstate drug traffickers were involved.
Sarat is the mastermind and the main accused in this case. During a search, cash worth Rs 1,25,000 and other incriminating materials were seized from him. The accused was produced in the Gajapati court on Thursday.
A patrolling party of Gajapati police in Odisha detected the accused and his associate Promad Kumar Tandi while transporting a huge quantity of ganja in a truck with an original West Bengal registration number but fitted with a duplicate Odisha registration number. Seeing the police party, the accused and his associate escaped from the spot leaving the vehicle. During a search of the vehicle, a huge quantity of ganja (4335 kg) was recovered and seized.
Based on the gravity of the case, the STF took over the case and investigated into.
The accused was involved in a number of cases (narcotics, robbery, rioting, etc.) earlier too. He had also once escaped from the custody of police. The father of the accused, Ekadashi Dey, was also a ganja peddler who has been convicted by the court and is now in Puri jail.
Further investigation into the case is underway.
