Kanpur (UP), February 14 The Crime Branch of the Kanpur Police has arrested a medical store operator who was carrying a reward of Rs 25,000 in connection with an illegal racket supplying codeine-laced cough syrup across the city, officials said on Saturday.
The accused, identified as Sumit Kesarwani, a resident of Devnagar in Raipurwa area, had been absconding since a case was registered against him last year, they said.
After months of surveillance, the police arrested Kesarwani on Friday, they said.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Crime Branch) Shravan Kumar Singh said the racket first came to light on October 12 last year when a joint raid was conducted at Balaji Medical Store in Devnagar under the supervision of the Drug Inspector.
During the inspection, officials seized 2,100 bottles of codeine-based cough syrup (Phenipic-T) and Alprazolam tablets (Calmpic 0.5), allegedly stored and sold without valid records or prescriptions.
Further investigation revealed that Kesarwani had procured 55,671 bottles of codeine syrup and over 1.2 lakh Alprazolam tablets through fake billing and forged documents, police said.
The accused deliberately deleted the digital records to hamper the probe, they added.
The DCP said the accused had allegedly supplied codeine syrup in bulk to around 74 medical stores in Kanpur and adjoining areas. The syrup, allegedly purchased at Rs 45-48 per bottle, was sold at Rs 150-160 per bottle to meet rising demand among drug addicts.
Police further said that Kesarwani sourced medicines from a Lucknow-based firm, Indica Lab Sciences, against which a separate case of illegal storage is already registered at Lucknow's Sarojini Nagar police station.
During interrogation, it also emerged that he had purchased 228 bottles of codeine-based syrup and other medicines worth Rs 1.59 lakh from alleged kingpin Vinod Agrawal, who is currently lodged in jail.
The police, on October last year, registered a case at Raipurwa police station under relevant sections of the BNS and the NDPS Act.
The probe was later transferred to the Crime Branch, which traced the accused through cyber surveillance, mobile location analysis and digital evidence.
Further investigations are underway, police added.