Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today sought the personal intervention of the Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for directing the Border Security Force (BSF) to take more effective measures to deter the trans-border drug ?ow, on the international border, which transits through the state before reaching the international/national market(s). In a letter to Mr. Rajnath Singh, the Chief Minister pleaded that the hands of state government must be strengthened in its ongoing war against drugs. He apprised the Union Home Minister that major component of drugs transiting through Punjab were the trans-border consignments pushed from across the Indo-Pak border in the Punjab sector.
Badal said that during the years of terrorism in the 1980s, the border has been fenced but there were some riverine gaps in the fencing.The Chief Minister said that interrogation of arrested smugglers and other inputs have revealed strong connections between the trans-border smugglers on the Indian and Pakistani sides. He said that smugglers belonging to a particular network trust the operatives of same families over generations on both sides of the border, which has led to persistent smuggling across the international border despite best efforts of the Central and State Agencies.
The Chief Minister said that in recent times, the use of Samjhauta Express railway link and the Indo- Pak bus service for dispatch of narcotic consignments have increased. He further said that Samjhauta Express has been particularly vulnerable to novel methods adopted by Pak smugglers by shaping the narcotic contrabands as ropes and using these to tie the wagons in order to avoid detection. Mr. Badal further said that the use of passengers as drug couriers and their baggage for heroin consignments has also come to notice.
The Chief Minister said that in such a scenario, drug enforcement becomes a multi-agency effort with a prominent role of the Government of India, as the Border Security Force (BSF) was responsible for guarding the international border and the Customs Department was responsible for enforcement, prevention and anti-smuggling work. He said that the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) and the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) have clearly de?ned preventive anti-smuggling roles.
The Chief Minister said that though the Border Security Force (BSF) has played an active and energetic role in combating trans-border smuggling of narcotic drugs yet the ?ow of heroin from across the international border continues with seizures being affected regularly by different agencies. He said that it shows that the efforts made by BSF need to be further intensi?ed so that effective plugging of the 553 km international border with Pakistan was ensured.The Chief Minister urged Mr. Rajnath Singh for increasing the vigil and putting in place more stringent measures on the 553 km international border (of Punjab State) from where trans-border narcotic consignments meant for the international and national market were transiting through Punjab. He informed the Union Home Minister that the drug traf?cking in the State has three elements - smuggling of heroin from across the international border, smuggling of opium, poppy-husk, charas, ganja etc. from across the inter-state borders, and misuse of prescription drugs like tablets, syrups, injections etc. in the State. Mr. Badal said that heroin was mainly manufactured in factories located in Pakistan and Afghanistan using opium cultivated in Afghanistan.
The Chief Minister said that Opium was also cultivated in the States of Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan and smuggled across the inter-state borders of Punjab with Haryana and Rajasthan, poppy-husk was smuggledacross the inter-state borders of Rajasthan and Haryana, while charas was mainly smuggled from Himachal Pradesh. He said that the state government has adopted a no-tolerance policy on drug enforcement and a proactive approach on drug de-addiction and rehabilitation process. He said that the state police have launched a sustained campaign against heroin smuggled from across the international border; poppy-husk, opium and other drugs smuggled from across inter-state borders; and have also launched a major crackdown on street drug peddling.
The Chief Minister mentioned that state police have conducted a systematic exercise to understand the end- to-end network of drug traf?cking from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Punjab to outside the State and further, as also distribution within the State. There has been an exponential increase in the seizures — heroin seizures have gone up ?ve-fold from 101 kg in 2011 to 520 kg in 2014 (upto November 17). The seizures of poppy husk have increased more than three times from 758 quintals in 2011 to 2366 quintals in 2013. There has been a very high increase in the number of arrests and the number of FIRs registered under the NDPS Act in the State (Annexure ‘A').
The State police have conducted raids and effected seizures from outside the State as well. Pharmaceutical units in Himachal Pradesh, Haryana, Uttrakhand, Uttar Pradesh, Delhi and Maharashtra have been raided and searched while accused persons have been arrested from the States of Rajasthan, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Maharashtra and Chandigarh. None of the pharmaceutical units located in Punjab have perted precursor chemicals for manufacture of synthetic drugs.The Chief Minister also apprised Mr. Rajnath Singh about the bold steps taken by the state government to curb the deadly menace of drug addiction. He said that the state Government has also launched a programme for setting up Drug De-addiction Centres and Rehabilitation Centres.