CHANDIGARH: Amid the ongoing decisive war against drugs launched on the directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann, Punjab Police have arrested 327 drug smugglers/suppliers after registering 230 first information reports (FIRs), including 31 commercial, under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) act across the state in the last one week. The Police have arrested 43 Proclaimed offenders (POs)/absconders in NDPS Act cases last week.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, while addressing his weekly press conference here on Tuesday, said that the Police have also recovered 11.73Kg Heroin, 20Kg opium, 9Kg Ganja, 5.76 quintals of poppy husk, and 28k tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids besides recovering Rs 20.07 lakh drug money after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas beside laying nakas at vulnerable routes across the state.
Talking about new trends in drugs smuggling, he said that with Punjab Police has tightened the noose around the drug smuggling, the drug peddlers/suppliers are now adopting new ways to evade arrests by selling drugs in very little quantities— in milligrams and grams so that it could not be detected. “One latest trend has come to fore wherein drug smugglers smuggled drugs by concealing them in onion-loaded trucks to avoid the stink,” he added.
Recently, it has also been observed that supply from Abohar and Ferozepur sides is increasing and drug suppliers are now preferring public transport to smuggle drugs, to avoid checking, the IGP said, adding that intoxicant tablets are majorly being supplied from UP-Delhi side from areas of Saharanpur, Ghaziabad, Bahadurgarh via Haryana, while opium and poppy husk are mostly coming from MP-Rajasthan side.
IGP Sukhchain Singh Gill said that the Punjab Police besides tightening the noose around the drug smugglers/suppliers, the Punjab Police have also waged war against anti-social elements and gangsters.
Since Chief Minister Bhagwant Mann-led Punjab Government came to power, Punjab Police teams have successfully busted 67 criminal modules and arrested 301 gangsters besides neutralizing two dreaded gangsters in the encounter and recovered 640 weapons along with 174 magazines and 3364 cartridges from their possession. Apart from this, the Police teams have also recovered seven hand-grenades and five IEDs, he added.
Meanwhile, the DGP has strictly ordered all the CPs/SSPs to further tighten the noose around the drug smugglers by identifying all top drug smugglers and the hotspots infamous for drug smuggling in their jurisdictions and launching a combing operation to nab all those selling/smuggling drugs. He also directed the Police chiefs to effectively forfeit the property of all the arrested drug smugglers so that their ill-gotten money could be recovered.