Srinagar, 31 July: The 14th UT-level meeting of the Narco Coordination Center (NCORD) was chaired by the Chief Secretary, Atal Dullu today, to assess the ongoing efforts to curb drug trade and drug use in the districts of Jammu and Kashmir.
The meeting was attended by Additional Chief Secretary, Higher Education Department; Director General of Police (DGP); Additional Director General of Police (ADGP), CID; Principal Secretary, Home Department; And other senior administrative heads and police officers, while the Deputy Acaders (DC) and Senior Superintendent of Police (SSPS) in UT almost participated.
Giving strong attention to the severity of the issue, the Chief Secretary underlined the important role of comprehensive investigation into drugs and psychotropic substances (NDPs), stating that the quality and time boundness of the investigation directly affects the success of the prosecution and the final results in the courts. He emphasized the need to strengthen the investigation process to ensure effective judicial disposal of cases.
The Chief Secretary also reviewed the long pending NDP cases and directed the concerned authorities to identify the underlying causes of the delay and to introduce the necessary corrective measures. He called upon the Police Department to submit a monthly report report on NDP cases, clearly indicated progress in investigation and prosecution with the age and phase of each pending case.
Emphasizing the importance of accountability, the Chief Secretary directed that all bail and acquitted cases should be jointly analyzed by law and police departments to identify potential intervals or laps in prosecution processes.
Addressing the need for strong drug de-addiction infrastructure, the Chief Secretary reviewed the availability of treatment facilities in the districts. He directed the Health Department to increase in-addition services in government medical colleges and district hospitals to reduce dependence on private facilities. He also called for mental health and IMhans to increase the capabilities of medical and paramedical employees at the institute of services in health institutions.
During the meeting, the Director General of Police, Nalin Prabhat highlighted the importance of pooling all available human and material resources to widely dealing with the drug problem. He emphasized the need for fast-track, high quality check and also flagged the misuse of courier services for smuggling of schedule-i drugs, some strict monitoring and control measures.
Principal Secretary, Home Department, Chandrakar Bharti in their presentation, share insight on the data available on the NCORD portal. He called DCS and SSP to call regular district-level NCORD meetings. He asked to upload on time to complete the agenda, minute and action reports. He also presented a detailed district-wise status of NDP cases, including pending or pending in courts under investigation.
Inspector General, Crime, Sujit Kumar, shared the operating data of the anti-drug drive of the Police Department. He informed the meeting that 1,032 NDP cases were registered in the current calendar year, which led to the arrest of 1,416 persons. In addition, law enforcement agencies seized 1,388 kg of illegal drugs and more than 62,000 psychotropic pills.
Additionally, 181 cases were registered under the Pit-NDPS Act, resulting in a perfectly backward and further link probe.
In addition, 220 drug hotspots were identified which included 20 newly identified areas of which 33 hotspots were destroyed. A total of 413 arrests were made in these areas. Similarly, in 45 cases, property attachment was taken action, including 35 buildings and 13 vehicles, which were associated with drug trade. The meeting was reported, with the relevant entries lodged in the land revenue documents, which were frozen or seized worth Rs 39 crore.
In addition, it was discovered that to increase the discovery capacity, 247 dedicated training sessions have been organized, more than 2,150 investigative officers have been trained in modern technologies to handle NDP cases to ensure high sentence rates.
The Chief Secretary was also made aware of comprehensive awareness campaigns and IEC activities by various departments in coordination with the police. In particular, it has been decided to develop technical intervention such as base-linked monitoring and drug recipes dedicated to the patient and patient intake with the help of Bisag-N to bend and prevent the abuse of prescription drugs for illegal purposes.
Repeating the government’s zero-optionalism policy against drugs, the Chief Secretary urged all stakeholders to adopt a coordinated, active and multi-dimensional approach to root out the threat of the drug from the length and width of the UT.
