City Police to establish Anti-Narcotics Cell

Hyderabad, Dec 21 (INN): The City Police is planning to establish a permanent Anti-Narcotics Cell to check the growing cases of the drug peddling.

This was disclosed by City Police Commissioner AK Khan while addressing a round table conference here on Wednesday. The round table conference was attended by the senior officials of the Narcotics Control Bureau, City Police, representatives of the IT Industry and members from the cine field.

According to the Police Commissioner, the proposed cell will comprise of an inspector, six sub-inspector, 10 head-constables and 30 constables. The cell will have three wings - Technical, Surveillance and Investigation Wing.

While the Technical Wing will coordinate with Cyber Crime PS and will assist investigation, the Surveillance Wing will liaise with local police and local Narcotic Cell of the Government of India and will maintain surveillance at vulnerable places like Bars and Restaurants, Pubs, Hukka centers and places of dwelling by foreign nationals.

The investigation team will concentrate on effective and early investigation of all these cases in coordination with the other two wings.

As a prelude to the establishment of Anti Narcotics Cell, the Narcotic Control Bureau, Chennai, has started a two-day training programme for the City Police officers on Wednesday.

A NCB Team headed by Zonal Director Davidson and Assistant Director Umakanth Misra has started the training session to empower the City police officers on Drug Law enforcement.

The City Police officials will be trained in the nature and incidence of drug abuse and drug peddling, NDPS Act, main sources of supply of narcotic drugs, routes of illicit drug trafficking, particular to AP and country and investigations.

The NCB Chennai has also agreed to impart regular training on emerging drug trafficking trends and investigation techniques to the staff and to supply drug detecting kits.

The Commissioner said that it is noticed that in recent times some antisocial elements including foreign nationals indulging in drug peddling by concentrating on youth celebrities, elite sections of the society in and around Hyderabad City.

It is also noticed that some youth of African countries who are visiting Hyderabad on a student VISA or as tourists are indulging in drug (cocaine) peddling by selling the same to youth, celebrities and elite sections of the society at various places like Pubs, Restaurants, Hukka centers and star hotels.

Since 2010, the Hyderabad City Police has busted 17 cases of drug peddling including Cocaine abuse in which 41 people have been arrested.

Ten more accused in these cases are yet to be arrested. Of 51 accused, about 29 were foreign nationals.

The city Police is also trying to find out the link between on-line fraud cases like lottery or job frauds and cases of drug trafficking as many African nationals are also involved in these online frauds.

From 2009 to 2011, about 28 cases of online fraud cases have been registered involving foreigners mostly African nationals.