Need to break drug supply chains: Amit Shah at regional meet

Drugs weighing nearly 1.65 lakh kg seized by the Delhi and Ahmedabad units of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) and the Gujarat Police were also destroyed on the day.

According to Shah, the drug-seizure cases saw a sharp rise of 152 per cent in the period from 2014 to 2022 as compared to between 2006 and 2013.

“It is important to crack down on heroin smuggling from the West Coast side of the country and Gujarat has done a great job in this direction. For this, I want to specifically congratulate the Gujarat’s Police, Gujarat CM and home minister. Operations carried out by the Gujarat’s narcotics control department in coordination with the Central agencies delivered results… Goa and Maharashtra has to step up and play a proactive role. In the entire western region, we are seeing increasing use of couriers and parcels for trafficking drugs…We will have to take strict steps and devise a mechanism to screen parcels.”

Urging all states to adopt “top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top approach” to identify the entire chain and network, Shah said, “We had done an investigation and the NCB came out with a new (top-to-bottom and bottom-to-top) approach to check drugs. When a person is caught at a ‘paan’ shop selling drugs, we can’t see it as just one isolated case… It is our job to track and identify the entire network. And when a big drug consignment is caught at a port, then the network needs to identify the last person downwards… otherwise we won’t be able to destroy the entire network… We can’t win this fight if we limit ourselves to seizing drugs.”

The Home Minister further said: “The fight against narcotics is at a delicate turn. If we fight with all seriousness, we will win but if we take this as just another offence, then the drug traffickers will win.”