Kolkata: In a major breakthrough, three students of well known private colleges in the city were arrested on charges of being involved in a drug peddling racket.
Substantial quantities of MDMA and LSD were recovered from them. 22-year-old Soumik Mukherjee is a BBA student, while 29-year-old Mriganka Banerjee is a Computer Science student. The third arrested youth, 24-year-old Koustav Kar, is an MCA student.
Acting on a tip off, officers of the Narcotic Cell of Kolkata Police conducted a raid in the house of Soumik at Ushapally in South Kolkata. Police recovered 2 gms of MDMA and 34 blots of LSD from him.
Police questioned him to know from whom he had managed to get the chemical drugs. During interrogation, the sleuths came to know about Mriganka, who is a resident of Vivek Nagar. He is a student of the same college as that of the arrested BBA student.
Police also came to know that the father of the arrested computer science student is a retired custom officer. Police recovered 14 gms of MDMA and 3 MDMA pills from the youth. They also learnt that he used to buy the same through dark web.
Later, police picked up a MCA student of another private college. He was also arrested from Ushapally. He resides close to the house of the arrested BBA student. Police seized 1 gm of MDMA from him.
According to a police officer, it seems that all the three youths were well known to each other and they kept in regular touch among themselves. One of the three youths used to buy the drugs and the task of the other two was to distribute the same, police suspect.
They are trying to ascertain whether any more persons are involved in the racket.
It may be mentioned that officers of Kolkata Police had been maintaining vigil at different places, including pubs and night clubs. On Wednesday, police received the information about the students and their involvement in the drug peddling racket.
It may be recalled that in April, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) had arrested four persons, including a 19-year-old girl, who was a student of class X from an open school.
They were arrested from South Kolkata as well. LSD blots and ganja was recovered from them. Two more persons were also arrested in December 2017, where one of the arrested persons had obtained a management degree from a private management college in Salt Lake, while the other one was a student of event management.