Sonbhadra (UP), Nov 30 (PTI) Uttar Pradesh Police on Sunday arrested an alleged mastermind of a large-scale cough syrup smuggling racket from Kolkata airport while he was reportedly attempting to flee abroad, officials said.
The accused, Bhola Prasad Jaiswal, a resident of Jharkhand, was tracked down with the assistance of Kolkata Police following specific intelligence inputs, Superintendent of Police Abhishek Verma said.
The SP said Sonbhadra Police had on October 18 seized nearly 1.2 lakh bottles of cough syrup from two container trucks.
Subsequent investigations led to more recoveries from Ghaziabad and Ranchi, he added.
During the probe, Jaiswal, owner of the firm based in Ranchi, surfaced as a key supplier.
“It was found that the accused had supplied banned cough syrup worth around Rs 25 crore to several districts of eastern Uttar Pradesh using multiple fake firms,” Verma said.
He said two such fictitious firms were also detected in Sonbhadra.
A case was registered at the Robertsganj police station following verification by the Drug Inspector, the SP said.
“We received information that he was trying to catch an international flight from Kolkata airport. Acting swiftly, we alerted Kolkata Police and the accused was arrested at the airport,” Verma added.
A team of Sonbhadra Police is in Kolkata and will bring the accused on transit remand, the officer said. PTI CORR ABN APL APL
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