• Tablets sold to drug addicts at exorbitant prices

By Shane Seneviratne

A stock of 17,000 tablets of a drug used in the treatment of mental disorders which was being sold to drug addicts at exorbitant prices and a stock of 1,000 tablets used in illegal abortions were seized and a suspect arrested by Kandy Police during a raid on a pharmacy in Ampitiya area in the early hours of last morning.

Police said the value of the stock of tablets was about Rs.1.7 million. A senior police official said the tablets misused as an intoxicant had been in increasing demand among the drug addicts due to the scarcity of heroin during the curfew. He said the normal price of the tablet was about Rs.100 in pharmacies, but the suspect had been selling them to drug addicts for exorbitant prices.

OIC Crime Investigation Unit CI G.S.Bandara is conducting further investigations on the instructions of SSP Kandy Division C.K.Ratnayake.

• The tablets misused as an intoxicant had been in increasing demand among the drug addicts due to the scarcity of heroin during the curfew