Amongst the recent hike in drug-peddlers and crimes in Delhi, the Crime Branch of Delhi Police decided on the 19th of June to conduct a widespread operation to track down and arrest the narco-offenders. This operation worked across 100 locations in our national capital. A list of places from where the traffickers operated has been shared with Municipal Corporation of Delhi with the aim of destroying around 15,000 kg of these drugs on 26th of June, said Special Commissioner Ravindra Yadav.
The operation was focused on street level drug vendors between Monday and Tuesday to clear out the bottom level and slowly reach to the top, allowing them to directly cut off the supply provided to the citizens. The operation was micromanaged and planned meticulously by the Crime Branch, Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) and district police.
In Delhi, there has been a great struggle to combat the drug addictions and availability to the youth, with extremely easy access to such illegal drugs and alcohol, Operation Kawach became much more important to implement. It had been launched to curb this in the May of 2022 which allowed the arrest of multiple drug supplier: 31 drug traffickers and 12 bootleggers.
The operation began with an over-all survey by ANTF revealing that heroin and cannabis are the most common drugs peddled throughout the national capital. The manpower of ANTF was increased from 60 to 90, creating a much welcomed expansion and strength to carry out the operations from the capital to the other states in slow progression.
The teams have successfully managed to arrest 64 narco-offenders and filed 62 FIRs under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act. This year the Crime Branch arrested 776 narco-offenders in 615 NDPS cases recovering heroin, cocaine, ganja, opium, poppy heads and other drugs in hundreds of kilograms.
The hotspots for peddling were in the neighborhoods of Jama Masjid, Shahbad Dairy, Uttam Nagar, Chhatarpur, Nizamuddin etc. Simultaneous raids occurred through these potential target spots. Ravindra Yadav also explained how the raids are revealing that the drug traffickers are actively shifting base out of Delhi to avoid the police.
Alongside this, Delhi Police and Xavier School of Management (XLRI), Jamshedpur carried out a survey to track down the source of these activities and have decided to start an awareness drive against the use of drugs and narcotics, to be done with the help of media campaigns.
The menace of drugs and the influence it has on the children must be actively curbed to prevent the younger generation from falling into the traps of such substance abuse. Though limited to the Capital for now, the police wish to expand their reach across country in a steady manner.
