NEW DELHI: In a major offensive amid India’s fight against narcotics, as vowed by Union Home Minister Amit Shah, the Centre has decided to launch a coordinated multi-agency offensive to dismantle international drug syndicates and disrupt global supply chains before narcotics reach the country’s borders, marking a strategic shift from interception to prevention.
The initiative, in line with Shah’s commitment to a “zero-tolerance” approach against drugs, was finalised after a series of high-level meetings held in March and April and a few of them were chaired by the Home Minister himself.
Senior officials said the new strategy focuses on targeting global criminal infrastructure that produces, finances and transports narcotics, rather than relying on seizures after drugs enter India.
“Under the plan, intelligence, enforcement and investigative agencies have been directed to prepare comprehensive assessments of the international narcotics ecosystem within their respective domains.
The exercise includes identifying key trafficking corridors, profiling major drug kingpins, tracing financial and logistics networks, and mapping criminal operations across the Golden Triangle, Southeast Asia, the Middle East and other high-risk regions,” a senior official privy to the development said.
The officials said inputs generated by individual agencies “will be integrated into a unified operational framework to guide future enforcement action”. They said that Indian personnel posted overseas have also been assigned an
expanded role in strengthening intelligence-sharing with foreign governments and gathering actionable information on transnational trafficking organisations.
“The focus is now on dismantling the entire ecosystem that sustains drug trafficking rather than limiting action to seizures after narcotics enter India,” another official said.
Authorities expect a significant expansion in intelligence generation through enhanced surveillance, financial investigations, technical monitoring and closer international cooperation. The campaign is being pursued on a war footing, drawing on the intelligence-led, multi-agency model credited with significantly weakening Left Wing Extremism.
Unlike earlier anti-drug efforts, the new framework seeks to simultaneously disrupt production hubs, trafficking routes, precursor chemical supply chains, financial networks, darknet marketplaces, cryptocurrency-based transactions and international logistics used by organised crime syndicates.
The renewed offensive comes amid growing concern over India’s increasing vulnerability to global narcotics networks.