A woman drug peddler, wanted by the police for over four years for being the key supplier of heroin in the Kolhan region, was arrested on Sunday, capping a month-long effort that began while investigating the rape of girl at an abandoned school building used as a den by addicts.

Dolly Perveen (35) was arrested from her house at Adityapur’s Muslim Bustee in adjoining Seraikela-Kharsawan district, about 3km from Jamshedpur, early in the morning after police followed up on tip-off that she had come to her husband’s house.

"We have arrested Dolly Parveen who was wanted in connection with a case under NDPS Act with the Adityapur thana. She is a key figure in the racket of selling brown sugar across Kolhan. We are interrogating her. We expect conduct more arrests in a day or two," Seraikela-Kharsawan SP Mohammed Arshi told The Telegraph Online.

Arshi declined to reveal details but said that Dolly, married to one Mohammed Kadim, had been dodging the police for long, hiding at various places in Adityapur, Kapali and Azadnagar in Mango. After coming to know that she was in Adityapur, police had set up a team that raided Kadim’s house early on Sunday and caught her.

A policeman associated with the case said that it was perhaps for the first time in East Singbhum that a key peddler had come into the police net. Otherwise, he admitted, they were only arresting addicts.

He also revealed that SP Arshi had made it his mission to catch Dolly after a gang of criminals, all suspected to be drug addicts, raped a teenaged girl in Adityapur on June 18. The girl’s body was found in the river Kharkai. Police suspect she jumped in the river to escape her assaulters, but ultimately drowned.

"The 16-year-old girl was raped in a dilapidated school building. The police searched the school building from where they retrieved a piece of cloth and a pair of slippers, which belonged to the girl. Police concluded that the abandoned school building was being used as a haven for drug addicts,” the policeman said.

It was then that Arshi decided to launch a concerted drive to arrest the key supplier of drugs in the region. “That is why today Dolly is in police custody,” the policeman explained.