Colleges in Punjab will soon be teaching their students about the perils of drug abuse as the Punjab Government has prepared the material to be added to the curriculum of the colleges.
The information was put before the Punjab and Haryana High Court during the hearing of a suo-motu case on drug menace in Punjab. The High Court, on a previous hearing on the issue, had rapped up Punjab for not including a chapter on the issue of drug abuse in the syllabi of students.
The High Court had expressed the desire to introduce chapters on drug abuse and its effects in the students’ curriculum around a year back. As the case came up for resumed hearing on Wednesday, the Division Bench of Justice Surya Kant and Justice Sudip Ahluwalia was told that the proposed curriculum was prepared. Taking up the matter, the Bench asked the investigating agencies to go into the source of drugs. The Bench has also called for the record of FIRs registered against the drug traffickers all over the state.
During the hearing, advocate Navkiran Singh told the Bench that the Punjab Police in most of the cases gets contented with the recovery of the contraband and the efforts are not made to find out the source of the narcotics drugs. Quoting an example, he said that the narcotics control bureau, while probing a case of drugs recovery at Amritsar, had traced the source of drugs to a factory in Uttar Pradesh. He contended that the apprehension of the sources or the people who are managing the drug trafficking cartels was most needed to force an effective control over the drug menace in the state.
Taking a serious note of the assertion, the Bench asked the investigation agencies to get to the sources and bring the details of the FIRs registered through out the state. Advising the investigating agencies for the effective action against the drug traffickers, the Bench said that only trustworthy cops with proven track record should form a part of the investigating team.
Taking up multiple applications in the matter, the Bench dismissed the regular bail plea of Maninder Singh Aulakh alias Bittoo Aulakh, who was seeking a bail under the provisions of Prevention of Money laundering Act, 2002, registered at a Patiala police station in March last year.