Sambalpur, Nov. 24: Sambalpur police busted a racket involved in the illegal selling of codeine phosphate-based drugs and arrested three persons. Selling such drugs without prescription is illegal.

The arrested persons were identified as Banke Bihari Agrawal, alias Banke, 50, his son Nikhil Agrawal, 21, and Gopi Bag, 24. All of them are from Sambalpur city.

Banke, the kingpin, ran a medical store at Remed. Bag helped the father-son duo in selling these drugs illegally.

Police had arrested a man, Tarini Dansana, who ran a betel shop at Remed, for selling drugs illegally without prescription around 15 days ago. He revealed he had procured the medicines from the Agarwals’ drug store.

Banke closed his shop and went missing after Dansana was arrested. But the police caught him on Saturday evening. Banke said a huge quantity of Lupicof syrup had been stored in a house at Kaensir. The cops raided the building and seized 400 bottles of Lupicof syrup.

“Lupicof syrup contains codeine phosphate as a constituent. Selling of these syrup and its derivatives without prescription is completely illegal,” said Sambalpur superintendent of police Prateek Mohanty.