Police seize huge cache of drugs

KATHMANDU, SEPTEMBER 8

Police have arrested three persons from Sallagahri, Bhaktapur, for illegally transporting a huge cache of prescription drugs.

The arrestees have been identified as, Bishnu Pradhan, 36 and Dambar Bahadur Pradhan, 37 of Baarhabise and Shankar Khadka,32 of Bhotekoshi, in Sindhupalchowk district.

Police confiscated around 13,000 ampoules and tablets of prescription drugs from them.

Pradhan duo, was arrested from a truck, that was used to transport the drugs. The main person of the scam, Khadka, was arrested from Narayanthan in Kathmandu.

The arrested people were transporting the drugs in the truck carrying packets of Horlicks. Police said the drug traffickers had used the vehicle carrying food items as those vehicles could ply the road during lockdowns and prohibitory orders imposed in many districts.

Metropolitan Police Crime Division, acting upon a tip-off, had raided the truck at a police check post. Senior Superintendent of Police Deepak Kumar Thapa at MPCD said the accused perpetrators had hidden the illegal drug at an artificially made space under the driver’s seat.

The seized prescription drugs include: promethazine , diazepam, buprenorphine and noophin and 3,000 tablets of nitraven.

Organised trade of prescription drugs is on the rise despite police crackdown, as per police.

Teenagers account for the largest section of end users of pharmaceutical drugs as they are more accessible and affordable than the hard drugs.

There has been an alarming rise in drug smuggling in the country.

According to Nepal Police, growing abuse of psychoactive substances and injectable drugs has emerged as a big problem in the country in the recent years.

Feature image: File

A version of this article appears in e-paper on September 9, 2020, of The Himalayan Times.