Bhubaneswar: A special team of the Kharvela Nagar police on Saturday arrested four members of a drug-and-loot gang from the Master Canteen area of the city.
Police said the accused persons include a woman.
The accused have been identified as Landa alias Ashok Behera (33), Sana Landa alias Purna Chandra Sethi (33), Susanta Rout (34), Muskan alias Sarifa Khatun (22), police said.
“Acting on a specific information our police team at around 3.00 PM raided a place behind Reliance Mall. The team saw 5-6 persons sitting there. The team apprehended four of them while two managed to flee the spot,” informed ACP Zone (I) Manas Ranjan Garnaik briefing reporters here today.
Garnaik said that two bikes, four strips of Lorazepam tablets (36 tablets), one knife and four packets of cake have been seized from their possession.
Explaining the modus operandi of the gang, Garnaik said that the accused persons used to loot passengers in trains by offering them cold drinks laced with sedatives like Lorazepam etc. or by stuffing sedatives in cakes or other foodstuff.
He informed that the accused persons are professional criminals and have several criminal cases against their names. While Landa has 12 criminal cases against his name, Sana Landa has 7, Susanta has 10, and Muskan has 8, he added.
The accused persons were forwarded to court today while efforts are underway to nab the other members of the gang.
