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Assam police’s drive against drug trafficking yields results: DGP

The recovery of psychotropic tablets in Assam has gone up by 274 per cent in the past two months due to sustained drive against drug trafficking, Director General of Police Bhaskar Jyoti Mahanta said on Tuesday.

The seizure of heroin and ganja has also increased by 53.6 and 60.04 per cent respectively since June 26, the International Day Against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking, Mahanta said.

“The sustained drive by the police has weakened the network of drug traffickers but we cannot claim that we have completely destroyed it,” he said.

A Special Narcotics Cell has been set up under the Criminal Investigation Department (CID) to deal with the situation, Mahanta said.

The number of drug-related cases reported with the police this year is 601 with 200 of them being reported from June 26 to August 30, the DGP said at a press conference here.

Altogether 1,032 people were arrested in such cases this year and 338 of them were nabbed since June 26, he said. The police is focusing on preventive detention under Prevention of Illicit Traffic in Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1988 and the government has already issued a detention order against a drug distributor of Guwahati, Mahanta said.

A database of 80 repeated offenders has been prepared by the CID and a proposal for preventive detention has been sent to the government by the police in Nagaon, Hojai, Hailakandi, Golaghat, Dibrugarh, Bishwanath Chariali districts, he said. “We are also focusing on the improvement of quality of investigation. For this, officers from the rank sub-inspector to the superintendent of police were trained through webinars,” Mahanta said.

“It is widely believed that there are sundry outfits who operate from Myanmar and many extremist organisations are involved in narco-terror. In these cases, central agencies take the initiative to deal with the situation and states can only help by coordinating with them,” the police officer said.

“Many police personnel, including several senior officers, have been infected with the virus but there has been no let in dealing with all types of cases”, he said.

Several senior police officials, including the DGP and his wife, have tested positive for coronavirus and 16 deaths were reported from the police force.

The DGP, who joined duty on Tuesday after recovering from COVID-19, urged people to follow all rules and regulations related to the pandemic.

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