New Delhi, Dec 27 (IANS): Delhi Police has arrested three members of an inter-state gang of drug peddlers that was active in Himachal Pradesh, Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad, and recovered over 1.5 kg of Malana Cream (charas) valued at Rs 10 lakh from their possession, an official said on Monday.

The arrested individuals have been identified as Adi Verma a.k.a. Akki, Suraj Kushwaha - both residents of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, and Sonu Tomar, a resident of Agra.

According to Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Amrutha Guguloth, police teams were tasked to bust and apprehend the drug peddlers active in the East district area of the national capital, and information was gathered about the people consuming costly drugs like charas, heroin, MDMA among others as it was believed that well-off people were consuming them.

"With new year celebrations round the corner, the consumption of drugs increases. The team started deploying decoys in various pubs and bars situated in East district where it was learnt that Charas is the drug which is mostly being consumed in these parties in a clandestine manner and their roots were traced to Himachal Pradesh," said the DCP.

On December 22, the police received specific inputs that two persons hailing from Firozabad, Uttar Pradesh were active in peddling Charas in east Delhi, NCR and Hyderabad.

The police team swung into action and both the accused, Adi and Suraj were apprehended and 1.25 kg of high quality Charas was found in their possession.

On questioning, the duo disclosed that one of their associates, Sonu, was still in Kasol in Himachal Pradesh who would be procuring the contraband.

"Since Sonu was not using a mobile phone it became an arduous task to trace him. Hotel-to-hotel verification was conducted and in one such home stay, Sonu was spotted and another 300 gm of charas was also recovered on his instance. He was arrested in the case and brought to Delhi," the police officer said.

Police said that after his father's arrest in Agra in a drug related case, Adi had spread his area of operations to Delhi-NCR and Hyderabad.