Avail every legal measure to assail bail orders in NDPS cases: Chief Secretary

SRINAGAR: Chief Secretary, Atal Dulloo, on Wednesday while chairing the 11th UT Level NCORD Committee meeting, impressed upon the law enforcement agencies to avail the legal provisions to assail bail orders under NDPS cases so that convicts are not let free after undergoing lighter punishments.

The meeting was attended by Principal Secretary, Home, Principal Secretary, School Education Department, ADGP Crime, Divisional Commissioner, Kashmir/Jammu, ADGP, Jammu, IGP Kashmir, Commissioner Secretary, Social Welfare, Secretary, RDD, Secretary, Law, DG prosecution, Deputy Commissioners, District SSPs, Representatives from BSF, ED, SIA and other senior civil and police officers.

Outstation officers attended the meeting through video conferencing.

Dulloo, while addressing the officers, emphasized upon the aspect of not giving leeway by showing any kind of laxity towards making convictions, submitting challans in the courts of law and carrying out quality investigations in each case.

The Chief Secretary directed the concerned to take stringent measures against the business establishments dealing with drugs to comply with provisions of installation of CCTV cameras and resorting to Computerized Billing System (CBS) exclusively. He made out that no pharmacy should be allowed to function without such facilities especially in urban areas and licences of these drug stores should not be renewed before showing full compliance with these rules.

The Chief Secretary enquired from each Deputy Commissioner and respective SSP about the details like detentions/seizures made, properties attached, licences of pharmacies suspended/cancelled, repeated offenders arrested under Public Safety Act (PSA), persons bailed out from courts and those successfully convicted in the court of law.

He also took notice of the properties belonging to drug traffickers attached by the law enforcement agencies under relevant provisions of law and the red entries made against same in the revenue records reflecting these attachments.

Dulloo further enjoined upon the concerned Deputy Commissioners and Police authorities about the measures taken towards creating the necessary awareness and establishment of additional Addiction Treatment Facilities (ATF) in their areas. He asked about the functioning of Drug De-addiction centres and status of IPD services extended in each of them.

He stressed on the departments like Police, Health, School Education, RDD and Excise to run regular campaigns to aware people especially youth about this menace. He called for generating awareness about the treatment methods and major signs so that parents can take appropriate measures to save their loved from getting consumed by the hazard of drug addiction

The Chief Secretary impressed upon the DCs to furnish details of Agricultural lands put into use for sowing alternate crops that were earlier used to grow illicit crops like hemp or poppy. He also directed for making serious efforts to rehabilitate the victims and focus on hotspots to eradicate this menace in its entirety from J&K.

On the occasion, a detailed presentation was made by the Crime Department providing an overall scenario of drug menace in J&K and the success with which it is being tackled by the administration.

The meeting was also apprised of the status of actions taken by the concerned over the directives passed by the Chief Secretary during previous meeting.

It was revealed that the NDPS court at Srinagar had recently been made functional. It was added that the IPD facilities have been established by the Health Department in all the seven Medical Colleges of the UT besides many other De-addiction centres of the districts. It was added that these centres are manned by trained Psychiatrists and trained manpower.

The meeting was also apprised of the enforcement measures being taken by the Police and other departments like licences cancelled/suspended by the Drug Controller for violating the norms.

The meeting was informed that substantial quantity of Heroin, B.Sugar, Charas, Opium, Fukki, poppy straw, Bhang, Ganja, Tablets/capsules, injections and syrup bottles of psychotropic substances were seized by the Department during this year.

As far as rehabilitation of addicts is concerned, it was given out that lakhs of examinations in OPD facilities of Health Department and thousands of counselling sessions had been held at the Health, Social Welfare and Police sponsored De-addiction facilities to rehabilitate the victims for larger good of the society and these victims as well.