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Punjab takes drug trafficking head on, tries to wean youth away

Last Updated 09 December 2013, 18:37 IST

Afghanistan notched a record bumper opium crop this year, up by 50 per cent since last year, a recent report by the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) states.

India’s cultivation of opium and poppy too jumped a record high of 36 per cent this year with farmers dedicating more acreages to opium production than ever before. Now, this explains some part of the genesis of record seizures of the high priced heroine this year on the 550-km Punjab border with Pakistan. Only this week on two consecutive days, over Rs 200 crore worth of heroine was seized in the state border belt, including recoveries on Tuesday from a bogie - carrying leather and crockery - attached to the Pakistan-India bound Samjhauta Express. This testifies to the extent of drug infiltration bids from across the border from Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But this drug-stained border state is pulling out all stops to square the circle. Punjab has declared war on drugs, and its paddlers. A sustained and pugnacious crackdown on paddlers and suppliers by the Punjab police now also provides hope for thousands of drug-addicted youth in Punjab. In the last 11-months, over 7,600 persons enmeshed in drug trade have been arrested and put behind bars in the state. Punjab’s war against drugs that started towards the start of the year on the direction of deputy chief minister Sukhbir Singh Badal has witnessed over 20 cases being registered each day on an average at various police stations across the state.

Drug supply lines are being broken, and youth are being goaded to pursue sports. The canvas of drug-blemished Punjab could perhaps see a change for good given that the flavour of sports is catching up with youth, especially in rural areas. There are stadiums being built all over, and traditional countryside rustic sports like Kabaddi are being promoted with extreme extravagance, glitz and glamour, even at the cost of inviting criticism on the austerity front.   

Narcotics seizures have crossed a record of over Rs 1,100 crore in just the last two months. One big catch by the Punjab police of a kingpin, Jagdish Bhola, who at one time was a decorated wrestler holding prestigious titles including the Arjuna award, Bharat Kesri and Rustam-i-Hind, has exposed the nexus. Suppliers in western countries including Canada are now under the scanner. Bhola ran an extensive drug racket in the country and abroad. He was the kingpin who used to divert precursor chemicals for medicinal purposes to illegal factories manufacturing synthetic drugs like ICE and supplying the synthetic drugs to the international markets in Europe, Canada and the United States, police sources said.

Creating avenues

While the state director general of police Sumedh Singh Saini kept his force busy cracking down on drug suppliers, the Punjab government worked simultaneously creating avenues for youth primarily in sports to productively channelise their energy. More and more youth, especially in Punjab rural belt, are increasingly getting hooked to the sport of Kabaddi being promoted by the state government in a big way. The World Kabaddi Tournament, which carries a cash bounty of over Rs 2 crore for the winning team, is presently underway in Punjab and is in its fourth season. The tournament has become a big hit and crowds outnumber the stadium capacity at many of the venues in rural Punjab. Many small nurseries for budding Kabaddi players are being set up to promote a culture of sports among youth.

Punjab youth have been grappling with drug for long, a menace that had been spiralling fast out of control. The State Disaster Management Plan states that some 73.5 per cent of the state’s youth aged between 16 and 35 years are affected by drugs. But the police crackdown and success in dismantling several supply lines that existed is beginning to help matters.

In fact, while the international border on the Punjab side with Pakistan is exclusively manned by the Border Security Force (BSF), the Punjab police has even managed to score over the BSF when it comes to seizures of heroine. Sample this: This year till date, the BSF has seized 295 kg of heroine, while the Punjab police was successful in seizing an ever record high of 348 kg of heroine during the same period. The seizures from Punjab are estimated to be worth nearly Rs 3,200 crore.

BSF officials say the increasing drug inflow from the border area is due to the record high production of opium in Afghanistan. Punjab falls in line of the international drug trafficking zone dubbed the “Golden Crescent” and is a major transit and destination point for drugs coming from Afghanistan and Pakistan. For the BSF, the task to nab drug paddlers or seize narcotics these days is even more challenging in the extreme winter chill with dense fog setting in at night till the morning.

A recent report by the Narcotics Control Bureau on drug seizures in the country reveals that the seizure of heroin from Punjab was more than the total seizures from all states put together. The report states that in the last three years till the end of March 2013, nearly 814 kg of heroin was seized by central agencies and the Punjab police during various operations on the border with Pakistan and within Punjab. Heroin recovered from all the states in the country during the same three year period accounts for less than 700 kg.

The war on drug trafficking has truly begun.

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(Published 09 December 2013, 18:37 IST)

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