Agartala: Tripura government’s sustained crackdown on trafficking and smuggling of drugs and narcotics substances seem to be yielding positive results, reveals a recent achievement report released by the state police.
According to the report, after the BJP-IPFT government came to power in 2018, seizure of narcotic items, arrests as well as number of NDPS cases have gone up substantially.
Chief Minister Biplab Kumar Deb, lauding the role of Tripura Police, shared a brief account of the success comparing police action on narcotic substances of 2017 with 2022.
“In comparison to 2017, Tripura has marched forward a long way in terms of Tripura government’s pledge to establish ‘Neshamukta Tripura’”, Deb tweeted.
However, the police achievement reports says, between 2015 and 2018, drug-related cases remained below 100 while after 2018 the registry of NDPS cases began to surge. In 2017, only 83 cases were registered, on the other hand in the subsequent years till February 2022, the number of cases registered are: 433 (2018), 301 (2019), 291 (2020), 352 (2021) and 84 (2022 till February). The number of arrests in connection with the cases have also gone up.
In 2017, only 65 people were arrested in connection with drugs but in 2018 a total of 660 people were arrested. Subsequently, 592 people were arrested in 2019, 406 in 2020, 501 in 2021 and 84 in 2022 till February.
Simultaneously, seizures of narcotic substances including ganja witnessed a dramatic increase. In 2017, 8,589 kg ganja was seized whereas the figure rose to 65,363.55 kgs of ganja in 2018. In 2019, 15,117.17 kgs of ganja was seized, in 2020, 12724.4692 kgs, in 2021, 41,565.245 kgs of ganja and till February 2022 only 10,176.235 kg of ganja was seized.
However, after 2017, the police had achieved great success in seizure of narcotic tablets. While before 2017 there were hardly any cases, in 2018, 2,79,819 tablets had been seized. In later years, the quantity of such seizures only saw an uptick rise. In 2019, 21,23,163, in 2020, 5,84,119, in 2021, 14,19,169 and in 2022, 23,326 number of tablets were seized.
In the last four years, the police have also made significant progress in detaining criminals involved in drug peddling, particularly heroin. In the intervening period of 2015 to 2017, seizure of heroin in the state was very negligible (76.06 gram in 2015, 1367 gram in 2016 and 82 gram in 2017) if compared to what has been done after 2018.
In 2018, 3096.062 grams of heroin was seized, much higher than expected quantity compared to the previous years. In 2019, a total 4278.9657 grams of heroin was seized, while in 2020, 2021 and 2022 (till February), 2162.351 grams, 3850.6394 grams and 1550.17 grams of the psychotropic drug was seized, respectively.
Apart from that, huge quantities of banned cough syrup and ganja plantations were seized and destroyed in the stipulated period.
Also read: Fake currency notes with face value of Rs 5.72 lakh seized, two arrested