Amarinder Singh calls for collective effort to fight drug problem

Tribune News Service
Chandigarh, October 10

Punjab Chief Minister Capt Amarinder Singh on Wednesday sought the continued support and assistance of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in fighting the drug problem.

He described the problem as a strategic conspiracy unleashed from across the international border.

Rivulets in Punjab were being used to smuggle drugs as part of a strategic agenda that went beyond commercial reasons, said the Chief Minister, while delivering the keynote address at the inauguration of a three-day Regional Workshop on ‘Combating Illicit Trafficking of Afghan Opiates: Developing a Comprehensive Approach’, organised here by UNODC and steered by UNODC ROSA Sergey Kapinos.

Expressing the confidence that his government would succeed in destroying the drugs business, Amarinder called for team work to battle the menace, saying UNODC could play a pivotal role in this. He said UNODC could help the state by identifying the big sharks that had a stake in the drug business.

While the STF and other agencies had been successful in catching mid-level peddlers, the big suppliers needed to be apprehended too, he said, adding that “we owe this to our future generations”.

The CM referred to the initiative taken by him to write to the chief ministers of the neighbouring states, which had led to the Haryana CM convening a meeting that had decided to set up a joint control room in Panchkula. Such collective efforts would help destroy the drug racket, he asserted.

Terming the drug problem as a critical issue that had been going for long in Punjab, the CM said the state had seen a shift from traditional use of marijuana (and to some extent opium) to synthetic stuff, which was posing a major threat.

The seizure of a consignment that had come from Mandavi in Gujarat into Punjab clearly suggested that the aim of the drug smugglers was to starve the Indian Army of precious manpower, thus weakening the country’s defence apparatus, said the CM.

Referring to Facebook posts of young girls sniffing drugs, he expressed concern at the dangerous trend saying his government was going all out to deal with the problem.

The STF set up to tackle the menace had shown remarkable results, he said, adding that since April 1, 2017, 18,216 cases had been registered under the NDPS Act, 21,489 people arrested, and 461 kg of heroin seized. In short, strong efforts had been made to break the supply chain of drugs. Additionally, 14 kg of smack, 134 kg of charas, 1,040 kg of opium, 63,421 kg of poppy husk, 676 kg of bhang, 9 kg of Ice, 3,369 kg of ganja, 225 kg of intoxicant powder, 89,50,421 pills/capsules and 76,114 injections had been recovered, he added.

Large sums of money were involved in the business, as was evident from these seizures, said Amarinder, pointing out that even a BSF constable was caught for complicity.

Earlier, Kapinos said while UNODC had been working in several countries around India for crime prevention and in combating illicit drug trafficking and organised crime, this was the first such workshop in the region.

Citing figures from ‘Afghanistan Opium Survey 2017’, he said the area under opium poppy cultivation and opium production in Afghanistan had reached a record high in 2017. The area under cultivation went up to 3,28,000 hectares from an estimated 2,01,000 hectares in 2016. Each year, thousands of tonnes of opium is produced in Afghanistan and then converted into heroin to reach end-consumer markets around the globe, as per the report.