The Punjab Police on Monday said they have arrested 271 drug smugglers or peddlers after registering 192 first information reports (FIRs) under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act across the state in the last week.
Police have also recovered 10.08 kg heroin, 13.52 kg opium, 5.52 kg cannabis, 3.43 quintals of poppy husk, and 54,123 tablets, capsules, injections, vials of pharma opioids besides recovering Rs 17.66 lakh drug money from their possession, Inspector General of Police, Sukhchain Singh Gill, said here.
He said with 11 more proclaimed offenders/ absconders in NDPS cases arrested in the last week, the total number of arrests reached 573 since the special drive to nab POs and absconders was started on July 5, 2022. Punjab Director General of Police Gaurav Yadav has given strict instructions to all the police commissioners and district police chiefs to investigate backward and forward linkages minutely in each and every case, especially related to drug recoveries, even if they recover a meagre amount of drugs.
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Gill said on the direction of Chief Minister Punjab Bhagwant Mann to make Punjab a drug-free state, extensive anti-drug drives have been launched by the Punjab Police to combat the menace. The DGP has also strictly ordered all the CPs/SSPs to identify all hotspots where drugs are prevalent and all top drug smugglers in their jurisdictions. He has also directed the district police chiefs to effectively forfeit the property of all the arrested drug smugglers so that their ill-gotten money could be recovered.
