Establish NDPS courts; lay hands on big suppliers to curb drug menace: CS

Jammu, Jan 1: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo today impressed upon the administration to put the ball rolling for establishment of NDPS courts for speedy trial of the accused under this act. He also stressed on laying hands on the big suppliers to curb the drug menace.

According to an official press release, he was addressing the 8th UT level Apex committee meeting of NCORD here.

The meeting was attended by ACS, Home; Spl DG, Crime; Principal Secretary, PWD; Principal Secretary, School Education; ADGP, Jammu; Commissioner Secretary, GAD; Commissioner Secretary, Social Welfare; Divisional Commissioner Kashmir/Jammu; IGP, Kashmir; Deputy Commissioners and representatives from NCB, SIA, Prosecution besides other concerned senior officers from civil and police administration.

In the onset the Chief Secretary enquired about the number of detentions made in the UT during the previous year and the proportion of successful convictions made in the court of law. He asked them to work towards enhancing the capacity of the concerned police personnel so that the cases are prepared professionally with higher conviction rate.

“Since the relevant laws are in place bolstered by police force in satisfactory numbers, it becomes imminent to deal with the drug menace very forcefully to weed it out from the UT,the Chief Secretary said. He stressed on using their resources optimally to gather information and laying of hands over the big suppliers who are pivotal in supporting this illicit trade here.

He also asked putting in place extra deterrent measures and giving exemplary punishments to those found guilty of running drug trade here. Duloo asked for gathering the audio-visual data from the CCTV footage of all drug stores and analysing it to find threads about possible operators using the modern Artificial intelligence tools. He asked the DCs to report about the status of properties sealed under PIT NDPS Act.

The Chief Secretary also directed the health department to utilise the services of the best of their psychiatrists to study the models adopted in providing care to the victims of this menace in different drug deaddiction centers across J&K. He also asked them to lay a robust protocol as per the standard operating procedure (SOP) at national level. He told them to make an effective strategy to assign the responsibility of deaddiction centers to psychiatrists only as these can treat the addicts as per their requirements.

He enquired from Deputy Commissioners about the scenario of drug trade in their areas and the response of administration against it. He asked from them about the achievements made in this regard and the issues, if any, faced by them. He asked them to work for total eradication of this trade in their respective jurisdictions.