Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: The city crime branch, in coordination with the Ahmedabad and Indore police and the Food and Drugs Administration (FDA), has busted a major cough syrup smuggling racket and seized 18,360 bottles of the addictive substance.
Commissioner of Police (CP) Praveen Pawar said the police have arrested Durgesh Sitaram Rawat (54), a resident of Bhandari Marg in Indore, and Dhermendra Khemchandra Prajapati (32) from Veljalpur in Ahmedabad.
A case had earlier been registered on Oct 9 against Kalpesh Chandulal Agrawal (38) of Padmanabhnagar in Dhule, Syed Navi Syed Lal (37) of Jogeshwari, MIDC Waluj, and Dnyaneshwar Manohar Yadav, alias Mauli, of Jai Bhavaninagar. During the investigation, police found that the accused had procured the cough syrup consignments from Durgesh and Dhermendra in Gujarat and Indore.
Acting on this information, the police arrested the duo from Madhya Pradesh and Gujarat. They were produced before the court and remanded in police custody till Oct 21.
The operation was carried out under the guidance of CP Pawar, Deputy Commissioner of Police Ratnakar Nawale and Assistant Commissioner of Police Sampat Shinde. It was executed by Crime Branch Police Inspector Sambhaji Pawar, Assistant Police Inspector Ravikant Gacche, and staff members Dnyaneshwar Avghad, Sanjay Bahure, Vinayak Shelke, Sandeep Kale, Arjun Kadam, Dilip Modi, Prakash Gaikwad, Ashraf Syed, Amol Shinde, Nawab Shaikh, and Sagar Pandhare.
