In a stock-taking exercise, the Gujarat state government, Tuesday, briefed the House that drugs worth more than Rs 5,338 crore were seized and nearly 102 people involved in illicit narcotics trades were apprehended by the state police between August 2021 and February 2023.
MoS Harsh Sanghavi told the Assembly: “The ATS deserves credit for having intercepted contrabands from making its way into the state. Of the 102 arrested, 56 are foreign nationals. While 44 are from Pakistan, seven from Iran, three from Afghanistan, there are two Nigerian nationals.”
The minister was replying to a question raised by LoP, Congressman Amit Chavda and Congress MLA Arjun Modhwadia.
Sanghavi said that the drug was pushed into Gujarat through the coast from Pakistan. The last consignment was sent from Iran to Pakistan and then to India. Sanghavi claimed that Congress-ruled states have “dispatched delegations to the state to understand how the Gujarat police is effectively curbing the drug menace.”
Referring to the drugs seized in the past from a private port, Chavda demanded that the BJP government should investigate the role of those who “provide a platform” to the smugglers.
Modhwadia claimed that most of the drug seizures in Gujarat were carried out by the Central agencies and not the state police. “As a result of the steps taken by the Punjab government, Gujarat has become an entry point for drugs for the last six to seven years. According to the Narcotics Control Bureau, only 10 per cent of drugs were caught, while 90 per cent made their way into the country,” he refuted Sanghvi’s claims.
However, Sanghvi retorted saying: “Why defame Gujarat for the sake of politics? The entire world knows Punjab is the drug capital of this country. It was the Gujarat police which had busted a drug network being run from Punjab jails. The Congress has forgotten that it was Gujarat ATS which seized drugs from the Kolkata port.” He also rewound to remind the Opposition of the infamous Gosabara incident in 1993 under the Congress regime, at the Centre and in the state.
Pakis have no source of income to pay their debt so they are pushing drugs through the border.
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