NCB bolsters steps to curb drug menace

THE NCB IS SET TO OPEN A REGIONAL OFFICE IN PUNJAB TO OVERSEE ALL ANTI-NARCOTIC OPERATIONS

The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is set to open a regional office headed by an inspector general (IG)-rank officer in Amritsar in the next two months to crack down on a drug-smuggling racket primarily run from across the border in collusion with Pakistan’s spy agency ISI, according to people familiar with the matter.

The office will oversee all anti-narcotic operations across Punjab, the people added.

A similar regional office was opened in Chennai two months ago. The personnel at the Chennai office have the specific task of stopping the smuggling of drugs into India via marine channels and identifying the big players involved.

Regional NCB offices will also be opened in Guwahati and Ahmedabad in the course of the next few months to act against drugs coming through the northeast Frontier and the marine border on the western coast, the people cited above said.

The NCB earlier had three regional offices in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

The opening of regional offices and creating new subzones in specific areas identified by the ministry of home affairs (MHA) and NCB are part of the Centre’s project to strengthen the anti-drugs unit, act against drug cartels, and make India “drug-free by 2047”.

Home minister Amit Shah in an interview with HT on May 4, said that the government is working towards the 2047 mission laid out by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Probes in different cases have revealed that terror organizations in Pakistan, along with ISI, are actively pushing drugs through the land and sea border as part of their narco-terrorism project.

There have been enough logged incidents to back the need for the regional office in Amritsar. Last Friday, three drones carrying drugs from Pakistan entered Punjab over a five-hour period, before they were shot down by security forces.

The following day, another drone was shot down. BSF officials said that 28 drones have been shot down and retrieved in the first five months of the year, and 200 have been repelled by the forces.

PM Modi, in his address during the 90th Interpol General Assembly, said that from illegal drugs that destroy lives to the sale of illegal arms, the “dirty money generated from the crime is also used to fund terrorism”.

A senior NCB official said the agency is also coordinating with other sister agencies and the Staff Selection Commission (SSC) to fill 425 newly created posts in the federal agency.