In a fight against menace of drug abuse, northern States and union territory of Chandigarh have decided to conduct special courses for investigating officers besides adopting three pronged strategy including treatment, enforcement and awareness.
Director Generals of Police (DGPs) and other senior police officers of northern states of Haryana, Punjab, Uttrakhand, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh and union territory of Chandigarh met here at a co-ordination meeting to discuss challenges of drug abuse and illicit trafficking and strategies to combat the same. Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal addressed the concluding session of the co-ordination meeting.
During the meeting, it was decided to begin eLearning from UNODC ( United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime) material for investigating officers, share information about new sources of funding for combating drugs, learning from best practices of other states and focus on TEA: treatment, enforcement and awareness to combat drugs
The Chief Minister while talking to the mediapersons said that special training courses would be arranged for investigating officers handling the cases under NDPS Act so as to ensure maximum conviction of culprits in the state.
To make the fight against drugs a success, he said that an inter-state drug secretariat has already been set up at Panchkula for data and information sharing to effectively tackle the issue of drug menace in northern region.
To effectively tackle the issue of drug menace, six northern states and union territory of Chandigarh together decided to adopt e-learning modules of UN Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) to raise the capacity of investigating officers in their respective states so as to completely eradicate drug addiction, he said.
The Chief Minister while expressing concern over the increase in cases of drug abuse said that the situation is alarming in northern part of the country and collective initiative is required to deal with it.
He added that last year, a meeting of Chief Ministers of northern states was also held here to discuss and formulate a joint strategy to fight drugs.
Earlier, the Chief Minister, while addressing the senior police officers urged them to adopt three pronged strategy vip treatment, enforcement and awareness (TEA) which is considered most important to combat the menace of drugs from society.
He said that Health Department should be involved for treatment of addicted persons, Police should increase the enforcement and maximum awareness should be made in the society in coordination with departments concerned, he said.
Manohar Lal also asked the police officers to work together to achieve the goal of making the northern region completely drug free. All states should join hands and coordinate regularly to completely eradicate the menace of drug from this part of the country, he added.
DGP Haryana, Manoj Yadava apprised the Chief Minister about fruitful deliberations held with the DGPs and other senior officers of the respective states.
Haryana Chief Secretary, DS Dhesi, ACS Home, SS Prasad, DG Narcotics Crime Bureau, Abhay, ADGP CID Himachal Pradesh, Ashok Tiwari, ADGP Intelligence Uttrakhand, ADGP Punjab, Gurpreet Deo, Special CP Delhi, Parveer Rajan, D and other senior Police officers from Punjab, Uttrakhand, Delhi, Himachal Pradesh, Haryana Narcotics Crime Bureau, and Intelligence Bureau attended the meeting.
In last year’s meeting attended by Chief Minister Manohar Lal, Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh, Uttarakhand CM TS Rawat and Himachal Pradesh CM Jai Ram Thakur, it was decided to set up a common central secretariat in Haryana’s Panchkula for sharing data and work in coordination to counter the menace of narcotics in north India
