Police schemes draw a blank as drug trade proliferates in Odisha
BHUBANESWAR: Commissionerate Police has a bouquet of schemes that seek to check crime and improve policing footprint in the slum settlements of the Capital. It also has a dedicated programme to take on the drug trade. Yet, the business of ‘poison’ has proliferated - unabated - over the last year taking more and more youngsters in its vicious grip.
In June, the Special Task Force of the Crime Branch seized 2 kg of brown sugar from a three-member gang near AIIMS, Bhubaneswar. It was one of the largest hauls in recent months, indicating the volume of business flourishing in the State Capital.
Such has become the proportion of the business of drugs that it is available like ‘beetel’ (paan) at every nook and cranny. One could order them over WhatsApp and get delivery at doorsteps.A police officer recounts how the arrest of a drug peddler more than a year back revealed his operation.
“We found from his WhatsApp chats several groups which had mostly students as customers. He would receive orders through messages and deliver the contraband on a mutually-decided spot and receive money on a payment application,” he said. About 23 students were identified as the peddler’s customers.
The situation has only grown grim as drug kingpins continue to target the young population. And most of the trade is run from the slum settlements. “Many women residents of slums who were earlier employed as domestic help have now entered the drugs business to make easy money,” said sources. Last year, police launched operation White Spider in August to curb the drug trade. It had planned to target the entire supply chain in the trade.
All police stations were instructed to carry out raids with the assistance of the Special Squad and the Quick Action Team personnel. But the result has been lukewarm, to say the least. Drug-related violence and murder has only grown while supply has multiplied, Friday’s gruesome killing in Narayani Basti under Capital Police limits was a grim reminder.
All this has happened despite police reportedly raising surveillance in the slum areas. In October last year, the top officers of Commissionerate Police decided to select 1,000 volunteers without any criminal antecedents to work as ‘Police Mitra’ with an aim to keep the slums free from crimes and drug trafficking.
Last year, it launched Basti Ku Chala, a community policing initiative to strengthen relationship between cops and residents of different slums. It was part of the strategy to tap slum dwellers to act as ‘eyes and ears of police' to share information regarding criminal activities. In each police station, an ASI/SI is designated as the nodal officer who is mandated to keep surveillance of criminal antecedents, a list of drug peddlers, and addicts.
Police claim there are over 950 ‘Police Mitras’ while the ‘Basti Ku Chala’ programme is being undertaken in at least 30 slums of the City to check crimes and limit the drug trade menace. Nothing has yielded any appreciable result because much of it ended up as a PR stunt.
The initiatives notwithstanding, the drug trade which involves big money runs right under the nose of the administration as individual police stations look the other way.