Bihar’s Special Task Force narcotics cell, working with Odisha police, raided the Saintala police-station area of Balangir on Monday and said it had exposed an interstate drug racket.[1] The team arrested four alleged drug traffickers with 50 kilograms of ganja, the local term for cannabis, and also seized one car and four mobile phones from them.[1] Those held were named as Satish Rai, 30, of Jethuli in Patna, Dhananjay Kumar, 27, of Raghopur in Vaishali, Rajiv Kumar, 24, of Judaunpur in Vaishali, and Ramakant Bagh, 22, of Khamanakhol village in Kandhamal, Odisha.[1] The STF said Satish Rai and Rajiv Kumar had long been active in drug smuggling and had previously served jail terms under the NDPS Act, India’s narcotics law, in cases linked to Simdega and Jamshedpur in Jharkhand.[1] All four were handed over to Saintala police station in Odisha for further action.[1]
Police described the wider network as cultivating both ganja and opium in Odisha’s forests, while the seizure in this raid was reported only as ganja.[1] Questioning of Satish Rai led police to say that tighter enforcement against intoxicants in Bihar had pushed cultivation work into areas adjoining Jharkhand and into Odisha.[1] Police alleged that many smugglers from Raghopur and Patna rent land in the forests of Kandhamal, Odisha, to have ganja grown.[1] The ganja grown there was then sent to Kolkata, Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and other places.[1]
