Bhubaneswar, April 23 (IANS): The Odisha Police Crime Branch's Special Task Force has arrested two persons, including an interstate drug peddler, and seized 'brown sugar', valued at over Rs 1 crore, during a raid in Angul district, police said on Tuesday.

The accused were identified as Rakibul Sekh, 43, of West Bengal's Murshidabad, and Bijay Birbarma, 26, of Angul.

"Following an intelligence input, a team of STF, with the help of Angul district police, carried out a raid at a secluded place near the FCI warehouse in Talcher and arrested interstate drug supplier Sekh and local peddler, Birbarma early on Monday. During the search, contraband brown sugar (heroin) weighing more than 1.1 kg (1,120 grams) and other incriminating materials were recovered and seized from their possession," Superintendent of Police, STF, K.K. Panigrahi said.

The accused were produced before a local court on Tuesday and it sent them to judicial custody.

"In Odisha, the drug is generally trafficked from Murshidabad-Nadia-Burdwan districts of West Bengal via Midnapore-Jaleswar using the road or rail route. The Lalgola area of Murshidabad is considered to be the hub of Brown Sugar production. Locally available/grown opium and easily available chemicals like acetic anhydride (locally popular as 'pani' in Murshidabad area) make the production of 'brown sugar' easy in this area," Panigrahi said.

The STF has so far seized more than 76 kg of heroin, 202 grams of cocaine, over 124 quintals of ganja, and over 14 kg of opium since 2020. As many as 197 drug dealers and peddlers including many inter-state traffickers have been apprehended.