Punjab’s 15-Month Anti-Drug Campaign: Thousands Arrested, Massive Seizures

With the decisive war against drugs waged on the directions of Chief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Singh Mann to root out the menace of drugs from the state has completed 15 months, Punjab Police have arrested as many as 20979 drug smugglers including 3003 big fish since July 5, 2022. The Police have registered a total of 15434 first information reports (FIRs) of which 1864 are related to commercial quantity.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, who was addressing a Press Conference here on Monday, said that the Police teams have recovered 1510.55-Kg Heroin from across the state after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas besides lying naked 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 1658.05 kg in just 15 months, he said.
Apart from seizing big-haul of heroin, the IGP said that Police have also recovered 924.29-Kg opium, 986.06-Kg Ganja, 470.91 quintals of poppy husk, and 92.03 lakhs tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids from across the state. The Police have also recovered Rs 15.81 crores of drug money from the possession of drug smugglers arrested in the last 15 months.
He said that Punjab Police have also forfeited properties of 111 big smugglers worth Rs 88.3 crores in these 15 months. The district Jalandhar Rural remains on top by forfeiting properties worth Rs 40.3 crores, followed by, district Tarn Taran, which confiscated properties worth Rs 12.06 crores and Ferozepur seized properties worth Rs 6.16 crores, he said.
Giving a weekly update, the IGP said that in the last week, the police have arrested 260 drug smugglers/suppliers after registering 185 first information reports (FIRs), including 21 commercial, and recovered 15.82-Kg Heroin, 6.13-Kg opium, 6.38 quintals of poppy husk, and 43388 tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids besides recovering Rs 4.11 lakh drug money from their possession. He said that with 13 more Proclaimed Offenders (POs)/Absconders in NDPS cases arrested in the last week, the total number of arrests reached 1111 since the special drive to arrest POs/absconders was started on July 5, 2022.