CHANDIGARH, September 6:
As the special drive started by Chief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Mann to root out drugs completed two months, Punjab Police have arrested as many as 4223 drug smugglers including 562 big fish since July 5, 2022. The Police have registered a total of 3236 first information reports (FIRs) of which 328 are related to commercial quantity.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Headquarters Sukhchain Singh Gill, who was addressing his weekly Press Conference here on Tuesday said that the Police teams have managed to recover 175Kg Heroin from across the state after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas besides laying nakas at vulnerable routes across the state. Additionally, 147.5Kg heroin was recovered by the teams of Punjab Police from Seaports of Gujarat and Maharashtra, taking the total effective recovery of heroin to 322.5Kgs in just two months, he said.
Apart from seizing big-haul of heroin, the IGP said that Police have also recovered 167Kg opium, 145Kg Ganja, 222 quintals of poppy husk, and 16.90 lakhs tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids from across the state. The Police have also recovered Rs 2.73 crores of drug money from the possession of drug smugglers arrested in these two months.
Last week, the police arrested 418 drug smugglers after registering 326 FIRs including 42 related to commercial quantity, and recovered 48Kg Heroin, 24Kg opium, 21Kg Ganja, 9 quintals of poppy husk, and 85374 tablets/capsules/injections/vials of Pharma opioids besides recovering Rs 13.78 lakhs drug money, he said.
He said that with 16 more Proclaimed Offenders (POs)/Absconders in NDPS cases arrested this week, the total number of arrests reached 263 since the special drive to arrest POs/absconders was started on July 5, 2022.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Mann having given the Punjab Police a free hand and full liberty to wage war against drugs, extensive anti-drug drives have been launched to combat the menace of drugs from the border State of Punjab. The DGP has strictly ordered all the CPs/SSPs to identify all top drug smugglers and the hotspots infamous for drug smuggling in their jurisdictions. He also directed the Police chiefs to effectively forfeit the property of all the arrested drug smugglers so that their ill-gotten money could be recovered.
