Narcotics trafficking racket busted, woman held

CUTTACK: Excise sleuths, in a coordinated operation with Railway police, have busted an inter-state narcotics trafficking racket on Saturday. A 50 year-old woman has been arrested and more than five quintals of bhang has been seized from her at Cuttack railway station here.The woman Hawa Devi, a resident of Makama Railway colony near Patna of Bihar, had been ferrying the contraband packed in about nine gunny bags in the Patna- Ernakulam Express when she was intercepted by the excise officials and police at Cuttack Railway Station. The narcotic substance is estimated to be over Rs1 lakh.  The yield and seizure might not draw eye balls in terms of value but the excise officials claimed to have made a vital breakthrough into the supply of narcotic substances into the state. “The woman has confessed to have been routinely making trips to Orissa with huge quantity of ganja and bhang and supplying them in many cities and towns including Cuttack, Jajpur Road, Bhubaneswar, Jatni and Puri. The intelligence on the supply channel was obtained during the recent raids and seizure of large quantity of the substances from Puri and Jatni”, Excise Inspector Cuttack Amarendra Jena said.  Hawa Devi had been making trips to the State on a weekly basis. She has been used as the conduit by the kingpins of the racket to evade attention. The substances were sourced from the illicit producing regions of Bihar and were then loaded in trains in company of the woman. “The whole operation was conducted in connivance with the unscrupulous elements in the Railways. Investigations are on to get to the roots of the supply chain”, Jena said.