GUWAHATI, 8 Oct: Union Home Minister Amit Shah on Saturday asserted that drug seizure alone cannot make the country drug-free.
Addressing the regional meeting on ‘Drug Trafficking and National Security’ here in Assam, the union home minister said that enforcement agencies must aim at destroying all channels between the traffickers and the final consumers.
“On the occasion of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav, Prime Minister Narendra Modi has a dream to make the country drug-free and for this, coordinated effort is necessary between central and state agencies,” Shah said.
“The security of the nation can only be ensured if drug trafficking and all related channels are destroyed as insurgency, arms smuggling, and other antinational activities are linked to trafficking,” he said.
”Insurgency, along with arms trade and drug trafficking, are two sides of a coin,” he said.
The union home minister urged the law enforcing, health, revenue, and social revenue departments to adopt a “twin-pronged approach for ensuring that drug trafficking is stopped.”
”We must be harsh with the traffickers while at the same time the victims must be dealt with sensitively,” he said.
Shah said that considerable efforts have been made to tackle the issue in the Northeastern states, where drugs enter from the neighbouring countries, but ”it is not enough.”
He urged the chief ministers, chief secretaries, and directors general of police of the Northeastern states to adopt strategies both ”from top to bottom and vice versa, so that the results percolate to the lowest level and the problem of trafficking can be eradicated from the roots.”
40,000 kg drugs destroyed
Meanwhile, around 40,000 kgs of seized drugs were destroyed in the Northeastern states in the presence of union Home Minister Amit Shah, who virtually monitored the destruction from Guwahati on Saturday.
The Narcotics Control Bureau in Guwahati burnt 11,000 kgs of confiscated drugs, while
the Assam Police destroyed around 8,000 kgs of contraband, according to a tweet by the office of the union home minister.
The highest quantity of 12,000 kgs of drugs were destroyed in Tripura, while 4,000 kgs of narcotics were burnt in Arunachal Pradesh, 1,600 kgs in Meghalaya, 1,900 kgs in Manipur, 1,500 kgs in Mizoram, and 398 kgs in Nagaland.
The union home minister will hold a meeting on narcotics control with the chief ministers, chief secretaries and directors general of police of the Northeastern states.
Shah is currently on a three-day visit to Assam since Friday evening. (PTI)
