For Priyankar Biswas, the journey from a village on the India-Bangladesh border at Gaighata, North 24 Parganas, to a promising future has come to a grinding halt. According to the police, Biswas — who is lodged in a prison cell along with two of his alleged associates for selling and possessing illegal drugs — had built up a clientele that included IIT students and outsiders close to the IIT campus.  

“Preliminary investigations have revealed that many students of IIT-K are addicted to drugs,” a West Midnapore police officer said.

According to sources in the police, earlier, the accused used to procure narcotics from small eateries in and around the IIT campus. But in order to earn money, Biswas started procuring drugs from big dealers from a place near Kharagpur. He is suspected to have links in the border areas, the sources said.  

IIT authorities have, however, termed the incident as a stray one. “We already have adequate measures in place to check such incidents inside the campus,” said DK Tripathy, Dean (Students). 

West Midnapore Superintendent of Police Rajesh Singh said that investigations were on to find out the procurement route for heroin. “We have got some leads and investigators are working on them,” said Singh, refusing to divulge more details about the case. The other two persons arrested with Biswas are also from the India-Bangladesh border towns of Lalgola in Murshidabad distric — an area that the Narcotic Control Bureau Zonal Director K Shankar said is a hub for drug trafficking. “The police are also probing Biswas’ links with drug dealers of Murshidabad,” the police sources said.

... contd.