Amritsar: Concerted drive against drugs led to seizure of 99 kg heroin in three months

PK Jaiswar

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Amritsar, April 8

With the General Elections for the 18th Lok Sabha round the corner, rampant drug peddling in the border district — comprising Amritsar police commissionerate and the Amritsar (Rural) police — has remained one of the major issues during the run-up to the polls.

In past three months, the Punjab Police have recovered around 99 kg of heroin smuggled from across the International Border fence through drones.

If data procured is anything to go by, the city as well as the rural police have arrested 337 drug peddlers and registered 214 FIRs under provisions of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act since January 1.

The rural police that covers the International Border had made a major recovery of 65 kg of contraband. The city police also made considerable seizure of 34 kg of heroin.

A new trend was also noticed when the city police recovered 2 kg of ice drug smuggled from Pakistan for the first time.

Gurpreet Singh Bhullar, Police Commissioner (CP), said, “The Punjab Police have launched a concerted drive against drug peddlers and smashed a number of narco modules being operated by gangsters turned smugglers from foreign shores, including Canada, the USA and Malaysia.”

“Now, we are taking investigations to conclusions by smashing the entire network after identifying their backward and forward links,” he said. “The idea is to break the supply chain of drugs which is one part of the campaign to eradicate the menace from the border state,” he said.

Satinder Singh, SSP, Amritsar (Rural) police, said, “Being a border district, the challenge is to nail cross-border smugglers. The use of unmanned aerial vehicles (drones) to smuggle drugs has increased manifolds in the past couple of years.”

He said, “We have set up second line of defence by laying special nakas in border districts. CCTV cameras are also being installed to check movements of traffickers on this side of the border coming to retrieve drug consignments dropped by drones.” Besides heroin, the police have also seized 17 kg of opium and 56 kg of poppy husk. The rural police have also recovered Rs 1.17 crore of drug money.