SHILLONG: Following the continuous seizures of narcotic items by the East Jaintia Hills police in the last few months, drug suppliers have now changed their route of transporting drugs from Assam.
East Jaintia Hills police last year made huge recoveries of contraband items making an arrest of 48 persons and 23 criminal cases registered against offenders.
During the year, police recovered 415 grams of heroin, 19 kg of Yaba tablets, 40 kg of ganja, 30 grams of Nitrazepam and 400 ml of Codeine.
The cumulative street value of these recoveries is approximately Rs 8-9 crore. Continuing the battle, this year, the police have already recovered 8.63 kgs Yaba tablets and 15 grams of heroin.
Speaking on the matter, East Jaintia Hills SP, Vivekanand Singh said that the number of drug addicts have gone down in the districts as per the feedback from the societies who are working in the field.
He said that drug addicts who have been booked earlier are now under fear as they know are under scrutiny which is deterring them to use drugs.
According to Singh, suppliers have also been cut down due to the multiple raids and arrests which have been made by the district police even as he added that inter-state transit road which passes through the district do pose a lot of challenges for the police.
Stating that Yaba tablets go to Bangladesh either through Meghalaya, Assam or West Bengal, he added that the police have its own mechanism of checking commercial vehicles to seize drugs and other contraband items.
Making it clear that the police would continue to check vehicles, he added that drug suppliers are now shifting their route to Silchar-Haflong-Hojai- Nogaon route in Assam since the District Police has been going all out against drug menace in the district.
He also informed that drugs are usually brought from Myanmar and stocked in Jiribam or Silchar and from there it is sent to Shillong and other parts of the country.
It may be mentioned that apart from crackdown on drug suppliers, the District police and other authorities, NGOs and stakeholders are also holding sensitization programmes in the district to disseminate information about the ill-effects of drugs on the youths.
