In a major breakthrough against drugs, the police on Monday arrested four persons from Sitaramdera bus terminus and seized marijuana worth over Rs 2.5 lakh from them.

Those arrested are residents of Bihar and were caught with a consignment of marijuana which was being smuggled to the steel city from Odisha by interstate bus.

Revealing about the breakthrough, superintendent of police, City, Subhash Chandra Jat said they arrested the smugglers on a tip-off.

"We had prior information that some people were smuggling marijuana from a certain place in adjoining Odisha by interstate buses plying between the two states. We had, therefore, set up a special team to nab the smugglers. A team led by the OC of Sitaramdera police station, Akhilesh Mandal, caught the gang with 22 kg marijuana from the bus stand on Monday," said Jat while speaking to the newsmen.

He said those arrested were supposed to carry the marijuana consignment to Bihar by another bus.

Jat, when queried, said the traffickers used to carry marijuana in private vehicles from Odisha on a regular basis earlier. But since the marijuana consignments were seized during checking on the national highway time and again in the past, they changed their strategy and had started carrying the drug by bus and in a smaller quantity

He said the arrested persons, identified as Ravindra Yadav, Motichandra Kusbaha, Lorik Yadav and Subh Goswami, were interrogated about their destination and about other gangs involved in the racket.

All the four accused were sent to Ghaghidih Central Jail after they were produced before a judicial magistrate in the afternoon.