Punjab seals borders, intensifies drug crackdown

Continuing the war against drugs “Yudh Nashian Virudh” waged on the directions of Chief Minister Bhagwant Singh Mann to eradicate drug menace from state consecutively for the 78th day, Punjab Police on Sunday carried out a special operation ‘OPS Seal-XIII’ aimed at checking all the vehicles entering or exiting the border state of Punjab to keep tab at drug trafficking and liquor smuggling.

During the operation, conducted in all the districts on the directions of Director General of Police (DGP) Punjab Gaurav Yadav, all the SSPs of Border districts were directed to organise joint Naka operations at strategic places of the border districts and mobilise a maximum number of manpower to lay strong ‘nakas’ at sealing points under the supervision of Gazetted officers/SHOs.

Sharing details, Special DGP Law and Order Arpit Shukla said that well-coordinated strong nakas involving over 1000 Police Personnel were set up under the supervision of Inspectors/DSPs at least 92 entry/exit points of 10 districts, which share boundaries with four border states and UT Chandigarh. The 10 inter-state border districts include Pathankot, Sri Muktsar Sahib, Fazilka, Rupanagar, SAS Nagar, Patiala, Sangrur, Mansa, Hoshiarpur and Bathinda.

He said that as many as 4244 vehicles entering/exiting the state were checked, of which 511 were challaned and 39 were impounded during the operation.

Apart from this, Police teams have continued its cordon and search operation (CASO) against drugs and conducted raids at 490 locations on Sunday leading to the arrest of 136 drug smugglers after registration of 109 first information reports (FIRs) across the state. With this, the number of total drug smugglers arrested has reached to 11860 within 78 days.

The Special DGP said that the raids have resulted in recovery of 11.3 kg heroin and Rs 3.48 lakh drug money from the possession of arrested drug smugglers.

He said that informed that over 200 Police teams, comprising over 1400 police personnel, under the supervision of 95 gazetted officers have conducted raids across the state and checked as many as 532 suspicious persons during the day long operation.

He said that Punjab Police has devised a comprehensive strategy and such operations will be continued till the scourge of drugs eradicated from the state.

The Special DGP said that with the state government has enforced a three-pronged strategy— Enforcement, Deaddiction and Prevention (EDP)— to eradicate drugs from the state, the Punjab Police as part of ‘De-addiction’ has convinced 103 persons to undergo de-addiction and rehabilitation treatment today.