Jalpaiguri police arrest schoolteacher for making drugs at home; suspected buyer held

Kolkata, Aug 20 (AHN) In an overnight anti-drug operation, the Jalpaiguri District Police have arrested a teacher at a government school after recovering brown sugar manufacturing materials from his rented house, said the police on Thursday.

Allegedly, an illegal unit was being run for making the banned drug brown sugar in the house of a government high school teacher who has been identified as Ranjit Sikdar.

Along with him, another person named Dheeraj Mahato has been arrested as well in connection with the incident. The incident took place near Chhochhariya petrol pump in Nagrakata of Jalpaiguri district.

Before conducting the operation, the police maintained a high level of secrecy about the matter. Even the lower-level police personnel did not know anything about the operation in the initial phase.

District Superintendent of Police, Sujata Kumari Veenapani, told media persons, "We had information from internal sources. We are investigating whether any big gang is working behind this or not."

The two arrested persons will be produced before the district court on Thursday. An application has been made for the accused to be remanded in police custody for a full investigation into the incident.

According to the police, a person named Ranjit Sikdar had been working as a teacher in a local high school for many years. However, there are allegations against him of being involved in drug dealing in the area. The person's home is in Bamangola in Malda district. The schoolteacher had gone to jail there several years ago for drug-related matters.

According to police sources, the Special Task Force (STF) of West Bengal Police had given several pieces of information about drug dealing to the district police several days ago. Since then, the district police had been keeping an eye on Ranjit Sikdar. On Wednesday, a large team of the district police raided Ranjit Sikdar's rented house at around 10 p.m.

However, in the initial investigation, not much was recovered except Rs 8.39 lakh in cash and a few fake notes.

Then the 46 Battalion of the Sashastra Seema Bal (SSB) was informed and SSB officials reached the spot with their trained sniffer dog.

With the help of the sniffer dog, police officials found about 67 grams of raw material for making brown sugar and items for making the drug.

Special white cloth used for making brown sugar and special plastic used for packing were found at the spot. After this, Ranjit Sikdar was arrested.

While searching the house of the accused, the police arrested Dheeraj Mahato, a resident of Pundibari area of neighbouring Cooch Behar district. Police suspect that Dheeraj Mahato came to Ranjit Sikdar to buy brown sugar with the recovered money.

Further investigation into the entire matter is underway.