Railway police busts Bihar-Bengal-Tripura drugs peddling racket

The Railway police have busted an illegal drugs peddling racket, involving narcotic peddlers of Bihar, West Bengal and Tripura and arrested six persons and seized drugs worth Rs 15 lakhs in Agartala rail station on Sunday, officials said.

Officials said that the Railway Protection Force (RPF) and the Government Railway Police (GRP) personnel apprehended six drug traffickers in Agartala rail station and recovered around 1000 Phensedyl bottles from their possession.

An official in Agartala railway station said that acting on a tip-off the six drug peddlers were arrested from Rani Kamalapati Express, which came here from Bihar. 

The official said that the drug peddlers, all residents of Bihar, confessed that they are carrying the illicit consignments with the help of their associates in West Bengal and Tripura and the Phensedyl bottles intended to ferry in neighbouring Bangladesh through clandestine routes.

A case has been registered under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) act and further interrogations of the detainees are going on. 

According to officials the Phensedyl, a codeine-based cough syrup, is the main drug that is often abused in the eastern and northeastern states of India and in neighbouring Bangladesh as substitutes by drug users.

Smuggling of Phensedyl from India to Bangladesh remained a challenge for the border guarding forces along the India-Bangladesh border. Tripura shares an 856 km border with Bangladesh and most parts of the frontier are already fenced.