JAIPUR: In a crackdown on narcotics, the CB-CID (Crime branch) of Rajasthan police unearthed a racket involved in supplying drugs to Gujarat and Rajasthan from Naxal-affected areas of Jharkhand.
The demand for drugs has risen due to a better quality and urge to earn more profit as opium from Jharkhand is of better quality and expensive as compared to the local harvest.
Ravi Prakash Meharda, additional director general (crime), aid, the crime branch has been into continuous monitoring of smuggling of narcotics into the state and has developed sources.
“In our recent seizures, it was found that people from our state visit Jharkhand where they are kept at a designated city or village. Naxals take money in advance and then the truck from Rajasthan is taken into the areas of Jharkhand and loaded with the quantity sought by smuggler of Rajasthan. Then in the truck the narcotics are concealed with pipes, cement and other commodities,” Meharda said.
He added that crime branch is developing its informers’ network and is also into continuous technical surveillance which is fetching good results. “Earlier, smugglers in Rajasthan were confined to take narcotics from Kota, Jhalawar, Chittorgarh and some parts of Madhya Pradesh but smuggling of narcotics from Jharkhand is a new trend,” Meharda added.
Pushpendra Singh, deputy superintendent of police, CID-CB who was into supervision of the recent operations that fetched a good amount of seizure of narcotics, said, “Smugglers from Rajasthan and Gujarat are in touch with the cultivators of opium in Naxal-hit areas of Jharkhand. In two of our previous cases, the better quality of opium was from Jharkhand only. It was found that people who visit never meet the smugglers of Jharkhand the middleman comes to collect the money and later the truck is loaded,” Singh added.
