Be ruthless against drug traffickers: Amit Shah to anti-narcotics agencies

Union Home Minister Amit Shah on April 19 advised narco-agencies to be ruthless with drug traffickers and destroyed the entire network of the same.

“You have to be ruthless with the drug traders and only then the battle will gain impetus. It will also prevent other people from joining the force of drug traders,'' he said s while addressing the 1st national conference of heads of the Anti-Narcotics Task Force of the states and UTs.    

''The youth who are addicted to drugs are victims. But the people who trade in drugs and weaken our generations, our national security, and our economy in exchange for money must be harshly dealt with,” he added.

Shah further said that there are two powerful legal weapons in the hands of narco-agencies in the battle against drugs one is the NDPS Act and the other is the seizing of properties. 

He also appealed to the agencies to destroy the entire network of the drug trade to win the battle against drugs.

“We have to proceed with a top to bottom and a bottom-to-top approach. If we nab a person taking drugs or we recover a pouch of drugs that cannot be counted as an achievement. We have to unearth the entire network of the trade including through which route it came. Similarly, if we seize a consignment of drugs we will have to unearth the entire pathway through which it had to reach the smallest peddler. We cannot attain success by investigating the crime alone. We can attain success by investigating the network and destroying it,” he said.

He also said that to implement the bottom-to-top and top-to-bottom approach in cases that are international and inter-state in nature assistance from the NCB, ED, and NIA can also be taken.

The Union Home Minister said that creating cooperation, collaboration, and coordination among all the narco-agencies to ensure that all of them work in the same direction with equal intensity is a must.

“This battle has to be fought with the whole of government and team India approach, rising above political ideologies,” he added.

Appealing to destroy seized drugs he said that to prevent the rotation of seized drugs through the routes of corruption they have to be destroyed after observing due formalities. 

“Please make the move to destroy seized drugs public so that it creates public awareness on the issue,” he appealed.

Also read: Principal secretary holds high-level meeting amid spike in COVID-19 cases