Prayagraj: Sleuths of the Special Task Force (STF) on Monday arrested three men for allegedly stockpiling and trafficking codeine-based cough syrups for narcotic use. The arrests are linked to a long-running interstate drug distribution network. Police also seized cough syrup and other generic drugs worth Rs 1 crore, a car and other valuables from their hideout.The arrested men, identified as Ankesh Kumar, Amit Prajapati and Ashutosh Tiwari alias Pravesh Tiwari, are residents of Dhoomanganj (Prayagraj) and Ayodhya.Acting on specific intelligence, an STF team raided a house near Kathula Gauspur and seized the consignment. A senior police officer said, “The STF received intelligence inputs about the smuggling of codeine-based cough syrup to UP and other towns from Delhi, Haryana, Chandigarh and Himachal Pradesh. The consignment was stored at a house near Kathula Gauspur.” The STF seized 19,388 bottles of illegal codeine cough syrup (Onerex brand), 61,600 tablets of different brands of generic drugs, one car, 95 blank sacks, two tool kits and three mobile phones from the spot.After their arrest, the accused allegedly confessed that they were operating in an organised manner across different towns in Uttar Pradesh. One member of the gang, identified as Jatin Mishra of Karchana, had allegedly created a firm using a Mangolpuri (New Delhi) address and was supplying drugs to UP towns from Baddi (Himachal Pradesh) and other states using forged documents.The gang members allegedly erased batch numbers from the drugs and supplied them to their contacts and drug dealers. They were booked under Sections 8/21/22 of the NDPS Act.
