Cops ring alarm over trade in narcotics

HIMALAYAN NEWS SERVICE

KATHMANDU: The Narcotic Drug Control Law Enforcement Unit (NDCLEU) today sounded the alarm over increasing trade of brown sugar in the Capital and said high demand was spurring traffickers.

In its latest move, NDCLEU rounded up six persons, including a woman, in Gongabu and seized 530 grams brown sugar from their possession.

The arrested are: Kali Maya Tamang aka Rita (28) of Nuwakot, Jiyalal Sahani (30) and Mahesh Prasad Kurmi (31) of Parsa, and Thapa Tamang (19), Jayaram Tamang (19) and Bai Lama Tamang (24) of Dhading.

SSP Nawa Raj Silwal, deputy chief of the unit, said Kali Maya was found to be supplying the drug to retailers in Kathmandu after procuring it from Jiyalal and Mahesh Prasad. “She would receive the drug from the duo and make it available to retailers on demand,” he said.

Jiyalal and Mahesh Prasad are Parsa-based drug dealers, who shuttle between India and Nepal to push the drug into cities such as Kathmandu, Pokhara, Dharan and Biratnagar.

The 560-gram brown sugar, which was seized fetches around Rs 3 lakh in the gray market. It can be used to provide a single dose to around 3,000 abusers.

“The arrested admitted that demand for brown sugar was increasing every day. This paints a grim picture of the drug trade,” SSP Silwal noted.

Separately, NDCLEU arrested two persons –– Chandra Bahadur Neupane (29) of Bara and Sahaj Das Gupta (50) of Siraha –– with 80 grams and 50 grams of brown sugar in a separate operations. SP Sher Bahadur Basnet informed that white and brown sugar are mostly consumed by the rich whereas members of low-income class go for pharmaceutical drugs to serve their addiction. The law states that a person possessing 25 to 100 grams of brown sugar can be sentenced to 10 to 15 years in jail and fined Rs 75,000 to 200,000.