Bhubnaeswar, Feb. 15: Government Railway Police today arrested one member of an interstate medicine theft gang and recovered drugs worth several lakhs.

The cops also seized two country-made pistols and live rounds from the accused, Sonu Panda, 23, a native of Jajpur district.

The police said the gang had been involved in a medicine theft worth Rs 18 lakh last September.

"The criminals produced fake documents and took away a major portion of the medicine stock from the parcel office of Bhubaneswar railway station. The consignment, worth Rs 55 lakh, was transported from Siliguri in Bengal by the Dhauli Express. We had earlier arrested three persons, including a clerk of the parcel office," said Government Railway Police station inspector-in-charge Soubhagya Kumar Swain.

Panda revealed the location of his medicine godown at Ruchika Market during interrogations and the cops later seized a huge quantity of the stolen medicine. "We also have information of their involvement in arms trade. The four bullets seized are suspected to be the property of an ordnance warehouse," said a police official.

"The gang was involved in loots from running trains. The gang members were also involved in murder cases in Ganjam," he said.

The police said the gang consisted of six to seven members from Jajpur and Ganjam districts and mostly operated in Odisha, Bihar, Bengal and Jharkhand.

"The other members were reportedly apprehended at Raniganj in Bengal in a similar case and our team will leave for Bengal tonight to bring them under remand," said Swain.

Cop molest case

Orissa High Court today directed the state government to submit the English version of case records related to the alleged molestation of a lady police inspector inside a lift on the court premises.

Tomorrow, the case will come up before the court, which was dealing with a PIL, filed by advocate Shivsankar Mohanty, seeking judicial probe into the case. The lady cop had lodged a complaint against two lawyers for allegedly outraging her modesty at Lalbag police station on February 9.

Yesterday, acting on the PIL, the court had called for the records related to the case. The government advocate was "to obtain instructions from the government on the issue and produce the necessary records pertaining to the case" today.

When the case came up, government advocate Ramakanta Mohapatra produced the copy of the lady cop's complaint and the FIR registered on the basis of it and her statement recorded before a magistrate. But, the record was in Odia.

"Taking note of it, the division bench of Chief Justice Vineet Saran and Justice B.R. Sarangi posted the matter to tomorrow for hearing, along with the English version of the case records," said Mohanty.# The lawyers had ceased work for two days on Monday to protest against the "false case". The bar association decided to call off the cease work yesterday and resume court work today. But in a change in decision, they continued to boycott court proceedings today. They will resume work tomorrow.

Additional reporting by Lalmohan Patnaik