Further intensifying the war to eradicate drugs menace from the state, the Punjab Police under its special drive launched against the drug menace have arrested 392 persons after registering 283 FIRs under the NDPS act across the state. The week-long drive commenced on February 25, 2021.
Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Dinkar Gupta, while divulging the details, said that under this drive the police have recovered heroin as well as other drugs after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug affected areas beside laying nakas at vulnerable routes across the state. The police have also arrested 15 Proclaimed Offenders (POs) of NDPS cases during these three days.
He said that as part of the Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh led Punjab Government’s zero tolerance policy against the drugs, the Punjab Police is committed to eradicate the drug menace from the state. He said that extensive anti-drug drives are being initiated from time to time to combat the menace of drugs in Punjab.
“The Punjab Police had set a new record by seizing over 700 kgs heroin worth Rs3500 crores in the international market and confiscating property worth Rs101 crores after arresting over 10k drug smugglers in year 2020 amid the COVID-19 pandemic,” said the DGP.
He said that the massive crackdown on drugs not only led to break the supply chain of drugs but also resulted in decline in drug related deaths as only 19 drug related deaths were reported in year 2020 in comparison to the years 2019 and 2018, which had witnessed 47 and 111 drug related deaths respectively.
Under the current anti-drug drive, The Tarn Taran Police carried out a mammoth exercise based on technical collection, data crunching and human intelligence to identify areas notorious for drug smuggling and recovered 1.39 kg heroin and a large number of intoxicant tablets in just 3 days. Interestingly, one of the arrested drug suppliers of Tarn Taran used to barter drugs with motorcycle or mobile phones, mostly stolen/snatched.
Similarly, the Amritsar Rural Police have recovered drug money worth Rs 89 lakhs besides impounding one pistol and 25 cartridges while the Jalandhar Commissionerate Police have recovered 6.23Kg Opium, 4.50 quintal poppy husk, 237grams heroin and 4.7Kg Ganja.
Meanwhile, the data from April 01, 2017 till date reveals that the Punjab Police have recovered 1760 kg heroin, 25 kg smack and 1794 kg opium from the drug smugglers and suppliers besides seizure/attachment of property worth Rs163 crores. On January 31, 2020, the Special Task Force (STF) of Punjab Police had seized 197 kg heroin and other contraband from the illegal drug factory set-up in a rented house at village Sultanwind of Amritsar and arrested six persons, including an Afghanistan national and a woman.
