Officials of the special drug squad with the seized drug in Sambalpur on Wednesday. Telegraph picture

Sambalpur, June 12: Police today arrested two persons for illegally selling habit-forming drugs.

The accused are identified as Manoj Agrawal, 40, and Jyoti Prakash Panigrahi, 27.

Panigrahi is a medicine representative and Agrawal a medicine distributor. A special drug squad, consisting of officials of the Drug Control department, police and excise department, also seized 1,208 bottles of Lupicof syrup from their possession.

“Lupicof syrup contains codeine phosphates as a constituent. This is a kind of sedative. It is completely illegal to sell those drugs without prescription,” said Sambalpur drug inspector Priya Ranjan Naik.

Sources said Panigrahi was buying the sedative from Agrawal and illegally selling it to betel shops, tea kiosks and his acquaintances.

“The police nabbed Panigrahi from the industrial estate area when he had come there to sell the drug. A total of 108 bottles of the syrup were seized from him. Panigrahi revealed that he had bought it from Agrawal,” said sub-inspector of Ainthapali police station Dhabaleswar Sahu.

“The squad sent Panigrahi to buy the drug from him again. Agrawal was nabbed when he was selling the syrup to Panigrahi. The special drug squad also seized 12 cartons of Lupicof bottles from the bathroom of the house of Agrawal,” said Sahu.

“The maximum retail price of the syrup is Rs 75. However, they were illegally selling it for Rs 90 to Rs 100. They used to sell around 1,500 bottles in Sambalpur every week,” said Sahu.

Superintendent of excise department Gangadhar Sahu said: “Agrawal was not the distributor of the Lupicof syrup. He was selling the drug illegally. Agrawal and Panigrahi have been booked under Section 21 of NDPS Act.”

“The squad will continue the drive to check the illegal selling of the habit forming drugs in the city,” he said. On June 5, the squad had raided medicine shops and several betel shops in the city to check the illegal selling of these habit-forming drugs.