International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking was observed at Raj Bhavan on Saturday organized by Himachal Pradesh Police Department. Governor Bandaru Dattatraya attended the function.Speaking on the occasion, the Governor said that Himachal Police has a distinct identity of its own and is known for its discipline, devotion to duty and honesty. He advised to organise activities related to stress management and positivity from time to time to maintain this identity. He asked the top authorities to work more on police welfare activities and said that drug addiction not only affects a person or family, but the entire society and there was an urgent need that police administration work more vigorously to eliminate this social evil. He expressed happiness that the police administration was making all-out efforts to curb this menace and appealed to the people to cooperate with the police in the campaign against drug addiction.“Himachal Pradesh is known as Dev Bhoomi and its culture, lifestyle, ideology is very rich but it is unfortunate that the problem of drug abuse has cropped up severely and if we do not check it immediately, the situation may become worse in the days to come”, said the Governor.Shri Dattatraya appreciated the initiative of the state government for launching Drug Free Himachal App to check illegal trafficking and said that through technology we could change the society. He advised to involve non-government organisations in anti-drug awareness campaigns. He also stressed the need to develop digital support in handling narcotics cases and use of social media tools to control trafficking and crime.
The Governor said that International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking was a symbol of our common resolve and cooperation to free the world community from addiction. Today, we are fighting on two fronts, drug abuse and corona pandemic but our police force has been performing best on both fronts. He said that Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment conducted a National Survey on Excessive Use and Paradigm of Substances through National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre of All India Institute of Medical Sciences which disclosed that about 14.6 per cent of the people aged between 10-75 years were current users of alcohol, i.e. around 16 crore people. About 5.2 percent i.e. more than 5.7 crore people were estimated to be affected by harmful or alcohol-dependent use which means every third wine user in India needed help with alcohol-related problems and this way we could understand how serious the situation was. He appreciated the efforts and hardwork of the police officials in dealing with drug menace.Earlier, Director General of Police Sanjay Kundu, while welcoming the Governor said that cases of drug abuse and drug trafficking were increasing at a fast pace and it needed to be contained to save the society. He said that a multi-pronged strategy was required to be implemented to effectively tackle this teething issue. “We are catching the big fish instead of small peddlers so that it can be checked at the source”, said DGP. He gave detailed information about the actions against drug addiction and anti-drug activities being undertaken by the police department in the state.
Interstate coordination was much better today than before and as a result important information regarding drug peddlers could easily be made available. He added that they were trying to wipe out the linkage of narco terrorism.He informed that 2126 cases have been registered under relevant sections of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substance (NDPS) Act and 2909 persons have been arrested during the period between 1st January 2020 to 30 April 2021. During the same period, 682.72Kgs of Charas, 15.88 Kgs of Heroin, 50.33 Kgs of Opium , 4805.91 Kgs of poppy husk,376.91 kg of Ganja , 128330 numbers of synthetic tablets and 52194 numbers of capsules among other contrabands have been seized by Himachal Pradesh Police, he added. To reduce supply of contrabands, illicit cultivation of 12,52,455 cannabis plants in 7917 bighas and 2,66,353 poppy plants in 52 bighas have been detected by a massive integrated intelligence operation and destroyed during the same period, he said. He said that recently, during the corona lockdown, Police succeeded in finding 66 bighas of land under illicit cultivation of 15 lakh poppy plants in a remote area of Sub Tehsil Tikken, Padhar, Mandi District in Chauhar Valley. He informed that since January 2020 till April 2021, the State Police have succeeded in attaching properties worth Rs 11.37 Crores in 19 cases.The DGP also honoured the Governor on the occasion.Sr. SP Shiva Kumar gave a powerpoint presentation on “HP Police efforts to curb Menace in HP.”ADGP Law & Order Ashok Tiwari proposed vote of thanks.Secretary to Governor Rakesh Kanwar and Sr. Police officers were also present on the occasion.