Cough Syrup Racket Busted In Odisha’s Balangir; Five Arrested

Balangir: In yet another breakthrough, police have busted a racket dealing with illegal cough syrup and arrested five people in Odisha’s Balangir district on Wednesday.

Addressing a press meet here, Balangir SDPO Tophan Bagh said a special team, formed to crack down on cough syrup racketeers, has seized a van with huge quantities of cough syrup at Taliuda of Chandanbhati area. Police seized 1120 bottles of cough syrup, four mobile sets and Rs 1100 cash.

Five people supplying the cough syrup were arrested. They were identified as Karuna Nayak of Fasada, Satish Sharma of Bileisharda, Yubraj Bhuye of Bargarh, and Niroj Banchhor of Melechhamunda, the SDPO added.

He further revealed that one Jitu Sa was arrested from Cherupali of Sonepur district.The accused were produced in court on Wednesday.

Notably, police have started ‘Mission Cough Syrup’, to crack crackdown against the cough syrup mafia. Police had on March 13 busted an inter-state racket and arrested 35 people. Cough syrup worth Rs 35 lakh had been seized and police have frozen Rs 2 crore in the bank account of a supplier company.

The racket, said to be the largest so far in Balangir, is involved in illegal procurement, transportation and selling of cough syrup in Balangir and neighbouring districts. They were procuring cough syrup from West Bengal.