Bhubaneswar, April 2 -- In a major crackdown on illegalnarcotics trade, Sonepur police seized more than one and a half quintals of ganja and arrested five persons during coordinated raids at two separate locations on Thursday. The contraband was allegedly being transported by attempting to evade police surveillance, but officials successfully intercepted the movement.

Police said that in one of the operations, a car carrying two young women and a child was stopped, and 30 packets of ganja were recovered from a suitcase inside the vehicle. Initial findings revealed that the occupants, including the driver, were not known to each other.

In another operation, conducted at Baghalpur Chhak on the Sonepur-Birmaharajpur road, police seized a T...