Punjab Police, central agencies discuss anti-drug strategy at Amritsar meet

The meeting was attended by representatives of Directorate of Revenue Intelligence, CISF, and the BSF. Head of Punjab Police’s anti-drug STF, Harpreet Singh Sidhu , Additional Director General, Intelligence Bureau, Manmohan Singh, Commissioner, Customs, Deepak Kumar Gupta and Enforcement Directorate Joint Director Ashok Gautam were also present in the meeting. Ten Punjab SSPs of border belt were also part of meeting.

Talking to media, DGP Dinkar Gupta said, “We held a joint meeting of state and central agencies to tighten the noose on drug smuggling. It was a very good meeting and we took some important decisions. All the state and central agencies came on same platform and agreed to work in coordination”.

“We have been planning preventive detention of drug smugglers who have been involved in smuggling for a long time. Some have family history of smuggling. They started from small villages and then settled into big cities like Amritsar and Jalandhar. We are planning that such habitual offenders be taken in preventive detention,” said Gupta.

Gupta said that officials from Himachal were also present in the meeting.

He said, “They also have four to five districts under drug smuggling nexus. Problem is serious in some parts of Haryana too. There have been different routes used in smuggling. Now even courier services are being used for this purpose. Line of Control in Kashmir has also been exploited and Afghan network is also active on LOC.”