Shimla, Jun 26
Himachal Pradesh Police Chief Sanjay Kundu stated on the International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking said that state police is catching the big fish instead of small peddlers to check the menace of drugs in the state. Addressing International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking event held at Raj Bhavan on Saturday organized by state police DGP Kundu said that a multi-pronged strategy was required to be implemented to effectively tackle this teething issue and state police is catching the big fish instead of small peddlers so that it can be checked at the source”, said DGP.
As many as 2126 cases have been registered under relevant sections of the NDPS Act and 2909 persons have been arrested during the period between 1st January 2020 to 30 April 2021, Kundu informed. During the same period, 682.72Kgs of Charas, 15.88 Kgs of Heroin, 50.33 Kgs of Opium, 4805.91 Kgs of poppy husk,376.91 kg of Ganja, 128330 numbers of synthetic tablets and 52194 numbers of capsules among other contrabands have been seized by Himachal Pradesh Police, he added.
To reduce supply of contrabands, illicit cultivation of 12,52,455 cannabis plants in 7917 bighas and 2,66,353 poppy plants in 52 bighas have been detected by a massive integrated intelligence operation and destroyed during the same period, he said.
He said that recently, during the corona lockdown, Police succeeded in finding 66 bighas of land under illicit cultivation of 15 lakh poppy plants in a remote area of Sub Tehsil Tikken, Padhar, Mandi District in Chauhar Valley.
He informed that since January 2020 till April 2021, the State Police have succeeded in attaching properties worth Rs 11.37 Crores in 19 cases. DGP said that interstate coordination was much better today than before and as a result important information regarding drug peddlers could easily be made available. He added that they were trying to wipe out the linkage of narco terrorism.
Himachal Pradesh Governor who presided over the event said that All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS) study revealed that 14.6 per cent of the people aged between 10-75 years were current users of alcohol, i.e. around 16 crore people.
About 5.2 pc i.e. more than 5.7 crore people were estimated to be affected by harmful or alcohol-dependent use which means every third wine user in India needed help with alcohol-related problems and this way we could understand how serious the situation was. He appreciated the efforts and hardwork of the police officials in dealing with drug menace.
Guv said that state known as DevBhoomi and its culture, lifestyle and ideology is very rich but it is unfortunate that the problem of drug abuse has cropped up severely. If not checked immediately the situation may become worse in days to come. He stressed the need to use social media to control the drug abuse.
