Kolkata, Sep 17 (IANS): The Nadia district police in West Bengal have busted a racket that used to sell marijuana (cannabis) cultivated in different pockets of north Bengal in neighbouring Bangladesh, said police on Sunday.

The kingpin of the racket, Mantu Mallick, a resident of Betberia village under Chapra Police Station of Nadia district, was arrested early Sunday morning. A huge consignment of 4.10 kilograms of high-quality marijuana was seized from his possession.

Meet Kumar, the additional district police superintendent of Krishnanagar District Police, under which Chapra police station comes, claimed that the arrested person will be produced at a district court on Sunday only where his police custody will be sought.

Meanwhile, district police sources said that the entire racket used to operate in a three- tier system. “In the first tier there were a number of marginal farmers who used to cultivate marijuana at the backyards of their residences in different remote rural pockets in north Bengal,” a district police official said.

In the second tier, he added, there was a chain of middlemen, who used to collect the marijuana from the growers and carry them to the end destination in Nadia via Malda and Murshidabad.

“In the third tier there was this Mantu Mallick, who used to segregate the collections in two parts. The majority of the collection was smuggled to neighbouring Bangladesh through the Indo- Bangladesh borders in Nadia district through an organized network. A small portion of the collections that was retained by Mallick was sold in the local markets,” the district police official said.