The Punjab government’s stringent measures to root out the menace of drugs has completed 13 months, the administration announced on Monday. According to officials, the Punjab Police has arrested as many as 18,079 drug smugglers including 2,643 big fish since 5 July last year. The police force has registered a total of 13,458 first information reports (FIRs) of which 1,630 are related to commercial quantities of illicit substances.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, who was addressing a press conference in Chandigarh on Monday, said that state police teams have recovered over 1,259 kilograms of heroin from across the state after months of carrying out cordon-and-search operations in drug-affected areas besides laying nakas at vulnerable routes across the state.
Additionally, 147.5 kilograms of heroin were recovered by the teams of Punjab Police from Seaports of Gujarat and Maharashtra, taking the total effective recovery of heroin to 1,407.16 kg in just 13 months, he said.
Apart from seizing big-haul of heroin, the IGP said that Police have also recovered 837.42 kilograms opium, 951.37 kilograms of ganja, 404.45 quintals of poppy husk, and 89 lakhs tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids from across the state. The Police have also recovered Rs 13.29 crore in drug money from the possession of drug smugglers arrested in the span of the last 13 months. Giving a weekly update, the IGP said that in the last week, the police have made the biggest recovery of heroin of 99.12 kg after arresting 316 drug smugglers/suppliers after registering 231 first information reports (FIRs), including 30 commercial. Apart from recovering heroin, Police teams have also recovered 9.20 kilograms of opium, 11.40 kilograms of ganja, 3.47 quintals of poppy husk, and 36018 tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids besides recovering Rs 3.31 lakh drug money from their possession in the last week. He said that with 13 more Proclaimed Offenders (POs)/Absconders in NDPS cases arrested in the last week, the total number of arrests reached 1026 since the special drive to arrest POs/absconders was started in July last year. Director General of Police (DGP), Punjab Gaurav Yadav had given strict instructions to all the CPs/SSPs to investigate backward and forward linkages in each case, especially related to drug recoveries, even if they recover a meagre amount of drugs.
