Cuttack: Police and other officials seized brown sugar worth Rs 80 lakh in Jaleswar town of Balasore district Thursday. After the seizure a controversy surfaced across Odisha with some people saying that then drug peddlers in the state are linked with underworld don Dawood Ibrahim and his accomplices. They said that the drug trade is flourishing in Odisha due to the influence of Dawood Ibrahim.
The controversy also took shape due to deceased actor Sushant Singh Rajput’s girlfriend Rhea Chakraborty. It has been alleged that Rhea is involved in drug peddling. In one of her texts which have surfaced recently, Rhea has said that ‘Bhubaneswar is the best place for easy availability of weed’.
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DGP Abhay in a press conference Thursday night however, rubbished all claims that Dawood is involved in the drug trade across Odisha. He clarified that four kilograms of brown sugar has been seized by the Special Task Force (STF) of Jaleswar police and one person has been arrested near the Balasore-West Bengal border. Abhay however, said that the seizure or the arrest cannot be linked to Dawood or his accomplices.
Abhay said that in the last few months the STF and other personnel of Odisha police have been very active to stop the drug trade in Odisha. They have made a number of seizures of contraband material in different parts of Odisha. He asserted that police have been very alert to restrict drug trade in Odisha.
Abhay said that investigations have revealed that the brown sugar may have been brought from the neighbouring states of West Bengal or Andhra Pradesh. He said investigations are on to find out the exact source from where the brown sugar came from. The top Odisha cop informed that cannabis is either grown in the state or comes from Andhra Pradesh. He said that Odisha Police have taken a massive drive to stop cannabis trade in the state.
PNN