Khordha: Intensifying its crackdown against the illegal drug trade, the Special Task Force (STF) of Crime Branch arrested five persons for their alleged involvement in drug peddling and seized over 1kg brown sugar.

Acting on intelligence input, a team of STF raided a place on Khordha Barunei road on Friday. During the search the sleuths recovered brown sugar weighing 1.05 kg, a packing machine and other incriminating materials from the possession of one Bijay Mohanty of Barunei.

Mohanty revealed during an interrogation that Sk. Jumman alias Badruddin of Jhadeswarpur under Jaleswar police limits, Soumyajit Parija, Sagar Behera and Sapan Bhattacharya of Jagatsinghpur delivered the brown sugar to him.

The sleuths then arrested the four persons on their way Balasore and seized a car and Rs Rs 5.3 lakh cash from them.

A STF PS Case No.15 dated 24.04.2021 U/s. 21(c)/29 NDPS Act, 1985 was registered. And investigation into the matter is on.

A sleuth said since 2020, STF in the special drive against narcotic drugs has seized more than 29 kg of brown sugar/heroin and more than 64 quintals of ganja/ marijuana and arrested more than 100 drug dealers/ peddlers.