Ranjit Parihar
To a big question mark on the plans formulated from time to time by different agencies, the drug trafficking and bovine smuggling has assumed alarming proportion in the Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir and situation will completely slip out of the hands if the well-coordinated efforts are not made at every level without further loss of time.
This can be gauged from the official figures, which reveal that there is no let-up in the smuggling of narcotics and involvement of the people in this illegal trade, which has the potential of destroying young generation of Union Territory of Jammu and Kashmir.
The startling figures revealed by government in a RTI filled by a social worker and advocate Vanshraj Sharma are that in the last five years, more than six thousand cases of animal trafficking, drug trafficking and arms smuggling have been registered on the highway. Of these, 4 thousand seven hundred fifty FIRs have been registered for animal trafficking. Two thousand FIRs for Narcotic and 15 FIRs have registered for arms smuggling. It is clear from this information how trucks and load carriers are being used for smuggling. Terrorists have been caught in trucks going to Kashmir thrice in Jhajjar Kotli and Nagrota. These terrorists were carrying weapons with them.
At present, to check the Drug trafficking, bovine and arms smuggling on Jammu Srinagar Highway only police personnel have been deployed at the entry points on highway to check the trucks coming to Jammu and Kashmir using old manual modus operandi and drug traffickers give slips to police every time new modus operandi
During the last five years quintals of narcotics and over lakhs of intoxicant tablets/capsules were recovered from the arrested drug peddlers, which is a clear indication of no let-up in the activities of those anti-national and anti-social elements, who are hell bent to completely destroy the young generation.
The seized drugs include cocaine, Ganja, heroin, ketamine, morphine, opium, poppy husk and poppy straw etc and all this clearly indicates that there is hardly any type of narcotic drug which is not being smuggled into Jammu and Kashmir for supply to the drug addicts particularly the youngsters.
“No doubt seizure of such a huge quantity of drugs and arrest of traffickers is an achievement for the concerned agencies but at the same time it is an indication of uninterrupted attempts from different quarters to inject slow poison into the lives of youngsters.
Drug trafficking was not only unavoidably associated with violence and organized crime, it was, in several countries, linked to terrorist activities. It was also connected to other criminal activities, like money laundering, arms and human trafficking, and corruption.
Police higher ups have a number of times shown their concern towards growing drug menace and has termed it as big a challenge as militancy. Rampant drug abuse has become an alarming public health problem worldwide, but like Jammu province the situation has worsened in Kashmir in recent years with cases of deadly heroin and brown sugar addiction showing an upward trend.
As the geographical location of Jammu and Kashmir makes the transit of deadly drugs possible, thousands of young men and women are in the grip of drug addiction due to the easy availability of deadly heroin and brown sugar. As per the data available with J&K Police, in 2020 alone, 36.08 kilograms of pure heroin and 49.7 kilograms of brown sugar were recovered from different parts of the Valley which makes it clear that narco-terrorism is emerging as one of the biggest challenges in Jammu & Kashmir. The seizure of a huge quantity of heroin and brown sugar and the related arrests indicate a close link between drugs and terrorism.
During corona pandemic all routes connecting J&K with the rest of the country have been sealed due to ongoing lockdown, the drug mafia is using ambulances and fake prescription slips of doctors to travel on the highways in guise of patients to avoid checking..
Few days back police arrested three narco smugglers, travelling in an ambulance which has exposed the new modus operandi adopted by the drug mafia to smuggle contraband drugs, especially narcotics, from one place to another. After arresting smugglers apart from contraband heroin, one revolver was also recovered from the ambulance. Police is questioning the trio to ascertain how many times they travelled on the highway applying similar modus operandi and what they had smuggled so far.
To check Drug trafficking , bovine and arms smuggling in Jammu and Kashmir need of hour is that full body scanner be installed at the entry check points on Jammu and Kashmir Highway which is often being used as life line by terrorist and drug and bovine smugglers as there is no advance gadget being used by security agencies to check these smugglings so far .
Installations of full body scanner will strengthen not only internal security on but will help security agencies to detect contraband — such as weapons, explosives, narcotics, currency notes, precious metals etc.
To check narco terrorism which is dangerous than terrorism the need of hour is that government should install body scanners at main entry points from Lakanpur to Srinagar like at Ban Toll plaza of Nashri Tunnel, Lakhanpur and Nagrota. So that whenever a truck, oil tanker, load carrier and other commercial vehicle passes by, everything inside will be visible. With the installation of the full body scanner , the smuggling of concealed heroin, other drugs and weapons on highway will be curbed as presently , manual checking of vehicles is done, which takes huge time as more than three thousand ply daily on Jammu Srinagar Highway .
As of now, trucks arriving at check points on highway are randomly checked leaving much scope to chance and error. After the installation of the truck scanner, every single truck would be checked for concealment of narcotics, weapons or ammunition, besides easily verifying the content of the goods, that too in a few minutes.
In order to deal with the threats of arms and drugs smuggling from Jammu and Kashmir (J&K), Punjab Police has already installed an X-ray machine (3D threat scanner) at Madhopur check post on Punjab and J&K border. Thousands of vehicles from J&K enter into Punjab through the checkpost and to check smuggling of arms and drugs has remained a big challenge for the security forces in past.
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