Drug menace bigger challenge than militancy: DGP

New Delhi: Jammu and Kashmir DGP S P Vaid said that drug menace was a “bigger challenge” than militancy in the state and that contrabands were being “pumped from across the border”.
This year, the police have arrested 667 people in 542 cases under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act for drug peddling and smuggling, an official data said.
“When I joined, I had announced an all out war against drugs and the people running it,” the director general of police (DGP) told a Delhi based online news portal.
The officer said that the police alone cannot fight the menace and there was a concern about narco-terrorism.
“There are a lot of drugs and narcotics being pumped into Jammu and Kashmir from across the border. It is very clear who is pumping drugs and narcotics into this state,” he said.
“I am trying to convince everybody, including the police force, about the bad affects. It (drugs) has the potential to destroy the society. We have made huge seizures, but there is difficulty on the legal and de-addiction fronts,” the DGP said.
“It may be recalled that 70 kg of heroin was recovered in Uri and 20 kg in Jammu. Roughly 100 kg recovered here came from across (the border),” he said, adding that everybody needs to make efforts to save the current and future generations from this menace.
Of the 667 people arrested in 542 cases, 214 were arrested in 163 cases in the Kashmir region and 453 in 379 cases in the Jammu province, the data said.
The data said that as many as 12 alleged drug peddlers were arrested under the Public Safety Act (PSA) in Jammu and Kashmir this year as compared to 27 in 2016.
It said that as many as 822 people were arrested in 608 cases of drug peddling and narcotic smuggling in 2016, and this year 568.94 kg of marijuana was seized, five times more than the seizure made during this period last year in the Jammu region.
In 2015, 24.3 kg of cannabis was seized and 107 kg in 2016. In the case of poppy straw, this year 5,610 kg was seized against 3,268 kg in 2016 and 1,846 kg in 2015, it said.
There was a significant drop in the amount of brown sugar seized.
Last year, 13.1 kg of the contraband was seized against 1.306 kg this year. In 2015, the police had seized 4.4 kg of brown sugar, the data said.
Till August 2017, 39.315 kg of heroin was seized against 64.143 kg in 2016 and 14.953 kg in 2015 in the same period, it said.
The other seizures include opium and cannabis, and banned capsules and tablets, the data said.