IEP Chandigarh, February 13
With the decisive war against drugs waged on the directions of Chief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Mann to root out the menace of drugs has entered the eighth month, Punjab Police have arrested as many as 10576 drug smugglers including 1540 big fish since July 5, 2022. The Police have registered a total of 7999 first information reports (FIRs) of which 915 are related to commercial quantity. Inspector General of Police (IGP) Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, who was addressing his weekly Press Conference here on Monday, said that the Police teams have recovered 529.53-Kg Heroin from across the state after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas besides laying nakas at vulnerable routes across the state. Additionally, 147.5-Kg heroin was recovered by the teams of Punjab Police from Seaports of Gujarat and Maharashtra, taking the total effective recovery of heroin to 677.03-Kgs in just seven months, he said. Apart from seizing big-haul of heroin, the IGP said that Police have also recovered 424-Kg opium, 480.24-Kg Ganja, 255 quintals of poppy husk, and 51.39 lakhs tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids from across the state. The Police have also recovered Rs 10.03 crores of drug money from the possession of drug smugglers arrested in these seven months. Giving a weekly update, the IGP said that in the last one week, the police have arrested 294 drug smugglers/suppliers after registering 231 first information reports (FIRs), including 27 commercial, and recovered 33.60-Kg Heroin, 10.60-Kg opium, 12.75-Kg Ganja, 3 quintals of poppy husk, and 37105 tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids besides recovering Rs 33.53 lakh drug money from their possession. He said that with 20 more Proclaimed Offenders (POs)/Absconders in NDPS cases arrested in the last one week, the total number of arrests reached 683 since the special drive to arrest POs/absconders was started on July 5, 2022. Pertinently, Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab Gaurav Yadav had given strict instructions to all the CPs/SSPs to investigate backward and forward linkages minutely in each and every case, especially related to drug recoveries, even if they recover a meager amount of drugs. Meanwhile, on the direction of Chief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Mann to make Punjab a drug-free state, extensive anti-drug drives have been launched by the Punjab Police to combat the menace of drugs from the border State. The DGP has also strictly ordered all the CPs/SSPs to identify all hotspots where drugs are prevalent and all top drug smugglers in their jurisdictions. 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.
