'The Barabanki Narcos' to be made into a web series

MUMBAI: The book 'The Barabanki Narcos: Busting India's Most Notorious Drug Cartel', authored by the former police officer Aloke Lal, will be made into a web series.

The story is set in Barabanki district, Uttar Pradesh, of 1984, and recounts how Lal lead the opium bust operation in the area. Scripting for the web series is on.

"I am very happy about it. The whole idea of penning the real story into a book was to reach out to people with what actually happened. We know how powerful the medium of films and web series are. With this show, the common people will get to know more about the ground reality of drugs, its danger and how the police department is handling the issue in that area," Lal told IANS.

Lal was posted as Chief of Police at Barabanki when he was 30. The story highlights how Lal's operation happened in a politically critical year in the history of India after the assassination of Indira Gandhi.

Said producer Prabhleen Kaur: "This hardcore Indian true story that has a great resemblance (to what happens) in the US. It was around 1984 when Aloke Lal reached Barabanki to clean the nexus of opium and around same time Agent (Javier) Pena and Agent Stephen Murphy from the United States DEA were sent to Colombia to clean out the nexus of Pablo Escobar, the biggest drug lord of the world."

Pena and Murphy's experience has been documented as a quasi-fictional thriller in the all-time blockbuster series "Narcos".

"We have the full support of Aloke sir in research and details, the writers are closely working under his guidance," Kauradded.