Saturday, 16 March 2024 | PNS | DEHRADUN
The Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) of Uttarakhand Special Task Force (STF) along with the police nabbed two interstate accused from the Uttar Pradesh-Uttarakhand border carrying 300 kilogrammes of doda powder and 5.5 kilogrammes of opium late on Thursday. The illegal drugs worth over Rs one crore were allegedly meant to be smuggled to Udham Singh Nagar considering Holi and upcoming Lok Sabha elections, the senior superintendent of police of STF Ankush Agrawal said. The accused had brought the drugs from Jharkhand’s Ranchi by hiding them in old papers in a truck. They have allegedly been selling drugs in the State for a long time. The STF’s Kumaon team was working to nab these accused for the past several weeks and finally nabbed them on Thursday night. Agrawal said that the drugs recovered from the accused were meant to be supplied in various parts of the district including Rudrapur, Bajpur and Gadarpur among others. Since it is the time of Holi and elections, the smugglers were expecting huge profits. The accused were identified as Luvjeet Singh (21) from UP’s Rampur and Balka Singh (32) from Gadarpur. They told the STF during interrogation that both of them are drivers by profession and carry goods from Uttarakhand to States like UP, Bihar, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Odisha and sometimes also bring back contraband. This time they had taken ply items to Ranchi from a ply factory in Rudrapur and were bringing back the illegal drugs from Ranchi to sell them in Udham Singh Nagar ahead of Holi and elections. The SSP said that the accused revealed many peddlers’ names during interrogation. Agrawal also announced a reward of Rs 25,000 for the team of 16 STF personnel involved in arresting the accused with the contraband.
