GUWAHATI: A team of officials seized 30 cartons of “Tripkoff” cough syrup with Codeine Phosphate on May 7. The officials made this interception under the supervision of the Deputy Superintendent of Police, CID, Deba Dutta.
They intercepted one fully covered TATA ACE van bearing the Registration No AS-02-BC-5224 which was being followed by a Wagon-R bearing Registration No AS-02-P-3600, on the Service Road of National Highway 37 in front of the entrance to Lal Gudam at Lokhra near Sarusajai Stadium.
Assam Police, which is known for its tongue-in-cheek humour took to Twitter to inform about the incident. “We found a lot of items in a Tata Ace near Sarusajai stadium, Ghty. The carriers are put under Quarantine. Purchasers may contact us to prevent delay in Lockdown 3.0. We have special arrangements for them at CID PS:),” CID Assam tweeted taking a jibe at the incident.
{{z2ybx51CLw9jgyRH6Sjc}}
On enquiry, the occupier of the Wagon-R came forward and revealed that the van carrying fruits belonged to him. However, on thorough search of the van, apart from some bunches of bananas, two secret chambers were found in the vehicle. One of these was behind the driver’s cabin and the other was beneath the cargo floor stacked with 30 cartoons of the cough syrup worth almost Rs 10 lakhs at MRP. As no supporting documents were found, the cough syrups were seized as contraband, meant for drug abuse.
Further, in order to mislead the authorities, the van had affixed to its windscreen, one paper with permission issued from the office of the Deputy Commissioner of Nagaon. The permission slip was a permit for the vehicle to carry fruits but the number of the vehicle itself was not on the permit list.
Md Abdur Rahman, Md Iman Ali and Md Nazrul Ali, all from Nagaon were among the 5 persons who were arrested by the officials along with Pankaj Mishra, Manager and Jiten Dutta, Accountant, both belonging to Nitco Transport, Guwahati.
The seized consignment of psychotropic substances were procured in the name of one JP Pharma, a drug distributor located at Rajgarh Road which is said to be owned by Pradip Talukdar, who could not be traced when the team took follow-up action to search the location the next day. The distributor allegedly sold the drugs to different locations illegally for drug abuse at exorbitant prices.
