Drugs In The Guise Of ‘Pakodas’ Give Away Odisha Trafficker Sambunath Barik’s Game; Gets Caught

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Bhubaneswar: Being smart is one thing but trying to be ‘over smart’ can give the game away, especially if you are a law violator. Notorious drug trafficker Sambhunath Barik (31) must have realised this to his dismay when sleuths caught him red-handed on Tuesday.

Acting on specific information, Special Crime Unit (SCU) sleuths had been vigilant in the Khandagiri area for a week. So, when they spotted a man receiving a packet upon asking for half-a-plate of pakodas from a truck driver, they got suspicious. The man who received the parcel was Barik. Barik was wanted in a two-year-old drug trafficking case in which his wife Pinky Das and associate Biswaranjan Roul were arrested by the Saheed Nagar police on July 14, 2021. Police had then seized Rs 34.78 lakh cash from them. Barik had been on the run.

The SCU later realised that Kebab full plate Rs 200, pakoda half-a-plate Rs 100, and special leg biryani Rs 250 were actually code words used by Barik. He was arrested with brown sugar worth Rs 11 lakh

“We took over the investigation recently. Acting on specific information, we remained vigilant in Khandagiri area for the last one week and spotted Barik on Tuesday. We rounded him up when he received a parcel from a truck driver. The packet contained around 110 grams of brown sugar,” SCU’s additional DCP Sanjeev Satpathy told Times of India.

According to SCU, Barik had been receiving brown sugar from drug dealers from the Digha area of West Bengal. “We came to know that Barik and the drug dealers were communicating in secret codes. Barik used code words like kawa 90, chicken masala 150 and fish 200 to receive his consignments,” Satpathy was quoted as saying.

The SCU is planning to take Barik on a two-day remand for interrogation after producing him in court on Wednesday, the report added.