Man with huge narcotics consignment nabbed in Bengal’s Malda

Kolkata: The West Bengal Criminal Investigation Department (CID) on Friday arrested a man with a huge consignment of banned narcotics in the Indo-Bangladesh bordering Malda district of the state.

Bhaskar Mondal, alias Dhormu (30), was arrested from his residence at Shahbazpur village which

is pretty close to the Indo-Bangladesh borders. Over a kilogram of brown sugar was recovered from his possession whose estimated market value would be to the tune of Rs 20 lakh, state police sources said.

A district court in Malda, where he was presented this afternoon, remanded him to seven days of police custody.

It was learnt that Mondal, who mainly worked as a migrant wage earner, had no prior criminal antecedents.

However, his neighbours informed the police that for the past few months, there had been a sudden upward swing in his lifestyle creating doubts about his avenues of earning.

"On being tipped off by their informers, a joint team of CID sleuths and the cops of the local Kaliyaganj Police Station raided his residence and recovered the huge narcotics consignment," a district police official said.

District police sources said that Mondal is probably a part of a bigger narcotics racket, with cross- border links, that has become extremely active in this bordering district for quite some time.

"This is the second major success in our drive against the narcotics racket only in the areas under Kaliyaganj Police Station. A total of five persons, including Mondal, were nabbed by our officers during that period seizing over 2.5 kilograms of banned brown sugar," the district police official said.