The Tilak Park New Extension police on Thursday busted a drug racket and arrested a gang of seven including a medical representative for allegedly peddling a painkiller tablet as substitute for drugs in and around the town.
The accused have been identified as Bhanuprakash, a salesman at a medical store and the prime accused, and his associate Raghavendra who worked as medical representative for a pharma company.
According to the police, the racket started last year when Bhanuprakash used to get a lot of demand for the tablets over the counter. Even though the drug is blacklisted, Bhanuprakash roped in Raghavendra and illegally sourced the drugs for extra money.
Raghavendra sold the illegally sourced drugs to Bhanu Prakash for a price of ₹800 per strip, the police said.
The duo later roped in their associate Abhishek and bought him a new phone to manage the clients. Abhishek used his contacts identified as Syed Lukhman, a cab driver, Syed Saif, a wall painter, Aftab, a fabricator and Gururaj, a marketing executive in a private firm, who started selling single tablets for a price of ₹100 to ₹200 to the college students and private firm employees.
The racket was uncovered when the police found a lot of empty tablet strips, syringes, and cigarette filters near schools, colleges, parks, and isolated places last year. Following this, Superintendent of Police, Ashok K.V., formed a special team who analysed hundreds of CCTV footage before zeroing in on the accused.
Based on credible information, the police arrested the accused and recovered 300 tablets, syringes, and mobile phones from their possession.
Efforts are on to track down more people and to ascertain the source of the drugs which were supplied to the accused in large scale despite restrictions, the police said.
Published – January 30, 2025 08:44 pm IST