LSD blots, ganja seized in Kolkata, four arrested
Kolkata, April 17: The Kolkata unit of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested four persons including two teenaged girls involved in a drug trafficking racket and seized 56 LSD blots and around three kgs of ganja from them, a senior official said on Tuesday.
Acting on a tip-off, the NCB officials on Monday arrested Afreen Ali (19) from Kolkata's Belgachia with 19 LSD blots and 2.8 kg ganja.
The sleuths later arrested her childhood friend Jewana Philips (19) for supplying her the consignment, who in turn named Prasant Basnet (22) of Kolkata's Picnic Garden as her supplier, the official said.
"Based on the statements of the three accused, we arrested Debyendu Roy (32), the main supplier in the racket, and seized 37 more blots of LSD from his residence in Kolkata's Dum Dum Park area," Dilip Kumar Srivastava, the Zonal Director of NCB-Kolkata, said in a release.
According to the NCB, further interrogations revealed that Roy used to procure the LSD from his friend in Bengaluru on a regular basis and supply it to different clubs, private parties as well as to city schools and colleges through youngsters.
He was also arrested in 2015 by the Bengaluru police on charges of drug trafficking.
While Roy completed his post graduate diploma in Information Technology from Bengaluru, the other three were pursuing Class 10 from open schooling, the official said.
"The four arrested persons were produced in the court on Tuesday," he added.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
Rupee falls 5 paise to 90.23 against US dollar in early trade
Mumbai (PTI): The rupee depreciated 5 paise to 90.23 against the US dollar in early trade on Monday, driven by rising crude oil prices and an unabated outflow of foreign funds.
According to forex traders, a volatile geopolitical situation and concerns over further US tariffs on Indian exports fueled the selling of Indian stocks by foreign institutional investors, even as traders awaited cues from macroeconomic data to be released this week.
At the interbank foreign exchange, the rupee opened at 90.23 and stayed weaker by 5 paise from its previous closing level.
On Friday, the rupee fell 28 paise to close at 90.18 against the US dollar.
Meanwhile, the dollar index, which measures the strength of the greenback against a basket of six currencies, was trading 0.14 per cent lower at 98.75.
Brent crude, the global oil benchmark, was trading 0.13 per cent higher at USD 63.44 per barrel in futures trade.
On the domestic equity market front, the 30-share benchmark index Sensex declined 356.49 points or 0.43 per cent to 83,219.75, while the Nifty dipped 94.90 points or 0.37 per cent to 25,588.40.
Analysts said several factors like the development related to Venezuela, Iran and US President Donald Trump's possible move towards Greenland are influencing the sentiment worldwide.
Foreign institutional investors offloaded equities worth Rs 3,769.31 crore on Friday, according to exchange data.
The latest weekly data released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday showed India's forex reserves dropped by USD 9.809 billion to USD 686.801 billion in the week to January 2. In the previous reporting week, the forex reserves had jumped by USD 3.293 billion to USD 696.61 billion.
