The police arrested a five-member gang for selling Fortwin injections to students of various colleges and few others in the city here today.
The police team seized 1,200 ampoules of injections, valued around Rs 1.5 lakh from the gang and arrested P Suresh (30) of Gajuwaka, Mohammed Hussain (27) of Maddilapalem, Ch Maheswara Rao (35) of Poorna Market, P Appalaraju (26) of Alipuram and M Santosh Kumar (30) of Kancharapalem.
DCP (Law and Order) C M Trivikrama Varma said that the gang procured the injections from medical stores in Khurda, Bhadrak and Berhampur of Odisha and allegedly sold the sedative to addicts in Visakhapatnam.
The injections are supposed to be sold strictly as per legal prescriptions from certified doctors, but the gang procured the sedatives easily from Odisha.
Confessing to the crime, an accused said that the drug was purchased from the gang, mostly by students from professional engineering colleges between 18 years to 30 years.
The normal price of one ampoule in the market is about Rs 5, but the gang sold the sedatives at a price between Rs 300 to Rs 800 depending on the need and vulnerability of addicts.
The police team also arrested five others identified as Ch Someswara Rao, KB Rao, G Venkateswarulu, IK Rao and D Murali, for storing as well as allegedly selling banned tobacco products like gutkha and khaini.
The police seized 150 bags of such products valued at Rs 23 lakh from various warehouses in the city.
