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Dinesh Manhotra
Tribune News Service
Jammu, July 15
Narco-terrorism has gripped the sensitive border state of J&K, with international drug mafia smuggling drugs into the country through the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB).
Ramesh Kotwal, Superintendent of Police (SP), who is heading ‘Operation Sanjeevani’ launched to snap the supply chain of drug mafia, confirmed to The Tribune that international mafia was operating from across the border to smuggle drugs into the country.
“Most of the drug peddlers arrested by the police have admitted that Punjab was their last destination, but they usually sold some portion of their consignments in Jammu province,” Kotwal said, maintaining, “The heroin, charas or any other narcotic seized by the police in the last three years during various operations was not produced in the country.”
On November 26, 2017, heroin worth Rs 40 crore was recovered from Mohammad Anwar of Rajouri. The consignment bore Afghani labels, which indicated that the drugs were smuggled into PoK from Pakistan and was being transported to Punjab.
The drug business is part of narco-terrorism, which has gripped almost all parts of the state and a large number of youths are falling prey to it.
“This is not simple drug smuggling, it is narco terrorism, which is more dangerous than other kinds of terror and we should not take it simply as a menace. It is a great threat, which can completely devastate our younger generation,” said Zorawar Singh Jamwal, chairman, Team Jammu.
Team Jammu is a group spearheading a war against narco-terrorism.
Quoting a survey conducted by Team Jammu, Jamwal said in the last three years, 220 youngsters had lost their lives due to drugs in Jammu district. “Shockingly, there is no data available with the police about deaths due to drug addiction in J&K,” he said.
As per official data, in the last three years, 1,183 cases were registered in connection with smuggling narcotics in Jammu province and 1,458 persons were held. The investigation conducted by the police revealed that ‘chitta’ was being supplied from PoK through Poonch and Rajouri for Punjab.
“In the last couple of months, we have succeeded in breaking many big supply chains of drugs in the Jammu region,” Vivek Gupta, SSP, Jammu, said, while admitting that checking the activities of drug peddlers was a challenging job before the police.
The SSP, who has given directions to all SHOs to crack down on drug mafia, is hopeful that within a month or two, there will be a drastic change. “Our target is to snap the supply line,” he said.
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