Permanent Anti-Narcotics Cell

The Hyderabad City Police is planning to establish a permanent Anti-Narcotics Cell to check the growing cases of drug peddling.

This was disclosed by City Police Commissioner A K 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 movie industry.

According to the Police Commissioner, the proposed cell will comprise an inspector, 6 sub-inspectors, 10 head-constables and 30 constables.

The cell will have 3 wings - Technical, Surveillance and Investigation.

While the Technical Wing will coordinate with the Cyber Crime PS and assist investigation, the Surveillance Wing will liaise with local police and the local Narcotics Cell of the Government of India, and will maintain surveillance at vulnerable places that include bars and restaurants, pubs, hookah centers, and places of dwelling by foreign nationals.

The Investigation team will concentrate on the effective and early investigation of all these cases in coordination with the other 2 wings.

As a prelude to the establishment of the Anti Narcotics Cell, the Narcotic Control Bureau (Chennai) started a 2-day training program for City Police officers on Wednesday.

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

City Police officials will be trained in the nature and incidence of drug abuse and drug peddling, NDPS Act, the 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 staff, and to supply them with drug detecting kits.

The Commissioner said that antisocial elements, including foreign nationals and youth from African countries, have peddling drugs by concentrating on young celebrities, and elite sections of the society in and around Hyderabad.

Since 2010, the Hyderabad City Police has busted 17 cases of drug peddling, including cases of cocaine abuse, in which 41 people have been arrested. 10 more accused in these cases are yet to be arrested. Of the 51 accused, about 29 were foreign nationals.

The City Police is also trying to find out the link between online fraud cases like lottery or job frauds, and cases of drug trafficking, as many African nationals have also been found to be involved in these online frauds.

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