No to narcotics: A Poster and twitter campaign; Pune gears up to come clean on drugs
As academic session begins, police, colleges and deaddiction centres join hands to keep youth away from drugs
4 min read
In April this year, the Pune Newsline covered in detail the rising level of drug abuse among youth in the city.
In the wake of rising levels of addiction among youths in city, the Anti-Narcotics Cell (ANC) of Pune city police has launched a campaign in which huge eye-catching posters are being put up in colleges across the city and also in prominent public places to dissuade citizens in general and youths, in particular, from using the narcotic substances.
In April this year, the Pune Newsline covered in detail the rising level of drug abuse among youth in the city. Police investigation into various seizures of drugs in Pune and subsequent interrogation of the peddlers has revealed that drug racketeers target mainly college students so that they can catch them young and their network is spread around colleges, college hostels and residential places that have a significant number of foreigners and college students. Peddlers are also known to keep a watch on fresher parties, late-night gatherings, new year celebrations etc.
Between June 27 and July 26 this year, a month-long awareness drive was also held by Pune police and social organisations in Pune with a theme ‘Listen First’ appealing parents and peers to communicate more with the youth. The month-long drive is held every year by police in collaboration with organisations like Muktangan Deaddiction Centre.
Senior inspector Pratibha Joshi, of the ANC said, “This year, continuing the activities of the month-long awareness drive, we have started putting up posters at colleges in the city and also at important places like traffic junctions, railway and bus stations. The purpose is to make the public aware.”
A banner at Balgarndharva Chowk put up by Pune Police as part of the anti-drug campaign. Many such posters can be seen across the city. (Express Photo by Arul Horizon)
One of the posters put up at the Balgandharva Chowk, compares the life of a drug addict with that of a healthy person while other posters put up at some city colleges ask, “If a friend offers you drugs, then is he your friend?”
Police investigations in the past have revealed that the drugs mainly come to Pune from two locations – Mumbai and Goa. Police have observed that young boys and girls from well-off families buy drugs from one particular individual student, who buys drugs from peddlers. New users are introduced to this distributor through those who have already been using drugs, police say.
Joshi added, “The young population, specially college students are vulnerable to addiction. As a part of the awareness drive we reach out to colleges, hold sessions with the students and tell make them understand the effects of drug use. The staffers from the ANC and representatives from organisations like Muktangan have also interacted with parents and teachers in the colleges to tell them the importance of communication with the students.”
Dr Vidya Yeravdekar, Principal Director, Symbiosis Society, said: “The campaign by the Pune police is a great initiative. The posters are very innovative and yet drive the message home. It is necessary to take up such campaigns as we cannot deny the fact about drug abuse in youngsters and especially collegians. We will support the police in their drives.”
Twitter campaign to educate people on fraudulent activities: Following the cue from the Mumbai police on the catchy Twitter messages, the Pune city police have started tweeting messages with graphics to make people aware of financial and cyber frauds. These messages are being tweeted from the Pune police’s official Twitter handle @PuneCityPolice.
An officer from the Economic Offences Wing of the Pune city police said, “We have started posting messages in English and Marathi. In the recent past, the EOW has made concerted efforts towards bringing to book all the online financial frauds and make serious efforts towards detecting them.”
One of the messages recently posted has a reference to Pune being selected to be developed as a Smart City. The message says, ‘Let’s make our Smart City too smart for online thieves to deceive.’
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