Punjab police caught 327 drug smugglers in the past week
Darpan News Desk IANS, 23 Aug, 2022 10:55 AM
Chandigarh, Aug 23 (IANS) The Punjab police on Tuesday said it arrested 327 drug smugglers or suppliers after registering 230 first information reports (FIRs) under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act in the state in the last one week.
The police arrested 43 proclaimed offenders and absconders in NDPS Act cases during this period.
Inspector General of Police (IGP) Sukhchain Singh Gill, while addressing his weekly press conference here, said they have recovered 11.73 kg heroin, 20 kg opium, 9 kg ganja, 5.76 quintals of poppy husk, and 28,000 tablets of Pharma opioids, besides recovering Rs 20 lakh drug money after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas.
Talking about new trends in drug smuggling, he said the police have tightened the noose around the drug smugglers. Now the drug peddlers and suppliers are adopting new ways to evade arrest by selling drugs in little quantities, in milligrams and grams so that they could not be detected.
"One latest trend has come to fore wherein drug smugglers smuggled drugs by concealing them in onion-loaded trucks to avoid the stink," he added.
Recently, it has also been observed that supply from Abohar and Ferozepur sides is increasing and drug suppliers are now preferring public transport to smuggle drugs, to avoid checking, the IGP said. He added that intoxicant tablets are majorly being supplied from the Uttar Pradesh and Delhi side from Saharanpur, Ghaziabad, Bahadurgarh via Haryana, while opium and poppy husk are mostly coming from Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan side.
Gill said the state police have also waged a war against anti-social elements and gangsters.
The police have busted 67 criminal modules and arrested 301 gangsters, besides neutralizing two dreaded gangsters in an encounter and recovered 640 weapons along with 174 magazines and 3,364 cartridges from their possession.
Besides, the police have recovered seven hand grenades and five IEDs, he added.
After launching the web-portal amidst presence of DIG (Cyber Crime) Nilambari Jagdale and DSP Samarpal Singh, the DGP congratulated the entire team for developing this user-friendly portal, which could be easily accessed by anyone to report cyber frauds.
A division bench of Acting Chief Justice Vipin Sanghi and Justice Navin Chawla noted that the interim status report filed by the Delhi Police shows that the police force failed to prevent miscreants from reaching the residence of the Chief Minister and vandalising the area.
In a record, the Punjab Government said it cleared payments of Rs 13,000 crore of farmers for procurement of wheat till Monday, state Food and Civil Supplies Minister Lal Chand Kataruchak said. He said this was the highest payment in the past decade.
The victims, both from West Bengal, were rushed to the SMHS hospital in Srinagar, where the condition of one is stated to be critical while the other is stable.
A case in this connection was registered against Ranjit Gogoi, the then Director of Information and Public Relation, Assam, and different private companies, for alleged misappropriation of the state government's money. The ED had initiated a money laundering investigation on the basis of CM's Vigilance Cell FIR lodged in 2017 against the accused.
The UK Prime Minister was given a ceremonial reception and a Guard of Honour at Rashtrapati Bhawan where he was received by Prime Minister Narendra Modi. Talking to the media after the ceremonial welcome, Johnson said that relations with India were never so strong.
