Fight against illegal drugs gets more teeth in Gujarat as Narcotics Cell becomes full-fledged task force
Gujarat's new Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) gets six times more staff and zonal offices in six places.
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The Gujarat Government has formed an Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) under the police's Criminal Investigation Department, with six zonal offices and a sixfold increase in sanctioned posts. (Source: File/ Representational)The Gujarat Government on Monday announced the formation of an Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) as a full-fledged division under the police’s Criminal Investigation Department (Crime), giving the Narcotics Cell some much-needed teeth in the form of a sixfold increase in sanctioned posts and the establishment of six zonal offices across the state.
A statement from the home department said, “To make the currently functioning Narcotics Cell more powerful, these ANTF units have been set up and an additional establishment of 177 including 1 SP, 6 DySP and 13 PI has been approved. Earlier, there were 34 officers and employees in the Narcotics Cell, which will now be established with 211 officers and employees after the ANTF is operational. These police officers and employees will focus only on NDPS-related crimes. The entire supervision of these units will be done by the CID Crime.”
The six new ANTF units will be stationed in Gandhinagar, Ahmedabad, Surat, Vadodara, Rajkot, and the Border Range (Kutch).
“These units will take ‘cutting-edge-level’ action against drug mafias, suppliers and peddlers associated with the narcotics network across the state,” the statement quoted Minister of State for Home Harsh Sanghavi as saying.
DGP Vikas Sahay said that zone-wise police stations would help to maintain consistency in the investigation of drug-related crimes. “The crimes registered by the ANTF units will be investigated systematically, which will make the process of getting strict punishment to the accused easier,” he was quoted as saying by the statement.
The ANTF will be under the CID Crime, which recently got its new chief, DGP Manoj Agarwal.
The statement further said that the ANTF units would supervise cases filed in local police stations, work on syndicate structures and inter-state narco offenders, and accelerate action against drug mafia under the Prevention of Illegal Trafficking in Narcotic and Psychotropic Drugs Act.
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