KOCHI: The Railway Protection Force (RPF) has upped vigil as drug traffickers are increasingly using women and children to smuggle ganja and other narcotics substances to Kerala on trains to evade security checks. RPF has launched Operation Narcos to put a tab on the smuggling of narcotic substances through trains to the state especially to Ernakulam district.
Binoy Antony, a senior inspector of RPF, said that recently a huge cache of ganja was recovered from Palakkad. In that case, two women and their children were found to be the carriers. “The movement of drugs via trains had come down in recent years. However, we are coming across more number of cases now. Last week we recovered 20kg of ganja from Ernakulam Town railway station.
On Wednesday, we arrested a person from Ernakulam Junction railway station and he was carrying 8kg of ganja. The new modus operandi of ganja smugglers is to use women and children as carriers. Earlier, women and children were spared during inspections. But now we are putting suspicious women and children under surveillance,” he said.
RPF is coordinating with the police and excise department to make Operation Narcos a success.
“We mobilised a large number of officials as part of Operation Narcos. We monitor railway station platforms and people inside trains. We also monitor people arriving at railway stations and their vehicles. We collect inputs from other agencies. This has yielded results as we were able to make two major seizures as part of the operation in the past two weeks,” he said.
In Ernakulam district, more drug cases are detected at Aluva Railway Station premises. As RPF enhanced its surveillance activities in Aluva, now numerous drug seizure incidents are being reported in Ernakulam Town and Ernakulam Junction Railway Stations as well. Apart from narcotic smuggling, the RPF is also monitoring child trafficking, including transportation of underaged children to the district for various works.