Anti-drugs drive: Thousands take oath

Tribune News Service

Jalandhar, March 23

Extending support to Chief Minister (CM) Capt Amarinder Singh to wipe out drugs from the state, thousands of volunteers from Jalandhar on Friday joined him to take a pledge to eliminate the menace from the state.

As the CM administered the oath to people live from Khatar Kalan in Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar, thousands of volunteers, led by Lok Sabha Member of Parliament (MP) Chaudhary Santokh Singh, MLA Sushil Kumar Rinku, Divisional Commissioner Raj Kanwal Chaudhary, Deputy Commissioner Varinder Kumar Sharma, Police Commissioner Praveen Kumar Sinha, Senior Superintendent of Police Gurpreet Singh Bhullar and others, rose from their seats in a packed auditorium of the DAVIET here and took the oath.

Volunteers pledged that as responsible citizens of the state, they would make concerted efforts to wipe out the menace from the city.

Lok Sabha MP from Jalandhar, Chaudhary Santokh Singh, said this was a historic initiative of the Chief Minister, which would go a long way in saving future generations of the state from the scourge of drugs.

Divisional Commissioner Raj Kamal Chaudhary said as per the directions of the CM, the event had been organised to ensure that more and more number of people were enrolled for the mass movement of the Drug Abuse Prevention Officer (DAPO) scheme. Chaudhary said these volunteers would be instrumental in wiping out the curse of drugs from the state.

Commissioner of Police Jalandhar Praveen Kumar Sinha said DAPOs were of two types—Official Volunteer (OVs) and Citizen Volunteers (CVs) —adding they had been assigned with the task of raising awareness against the drug abuse, identification of users, high-risk people and vulnerable sections. Likewise, Sinha said the drug addicts were not criminals but victims who needed to be brought into the fray through the initiative.

He said efforts had been made to cut the supply line of drugs but perhaps for the first time a serious effort of this kind was being made to check the demand of drugs by motivating the people to be partners in the cause.