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Punjab Police to get Isuzu, Scorpios to chase criminals
Additional director general of police AS Rai has been appointed as the nodal officer of the ‘Sadak Surakhya Force’
Punjab Police will get vehicles capable of high speed as part of its new initiative of setting up a team dedicated towards road safety and effectively chasing criminals, said officials on Monday.
Inspector general of police Sukhchain Singh Gill said 144 vehicles — 116 Isuzus and 28 Mahindra Scorpios — will be purchased, adding that chief minister Bhagwant Mann had given directions that police vehicles should be such which can effectively chase criminals.
Addressing the media here, Gill said the ‘Sadak Surakhya Force’ will be set up to prevent crime and road accidents. The state government has earmarked a sum of ₹39.50 crore for it, he said.
Additional director general of police AS Rai has been appointed as the nodal officer of the force. The force will be equipped with modern equipment, including body cameras, GPS-fitted vehicles and breath analysers, he said. There will be a special uniform of the force, he added.
Over 14K smugglers held in a year
The police have arrested 14,952 drug smugglers, including 2,132 big fish, since July 5 last year and have registered 11,147 FIRs, of which 1,313 are related to commercial quantity of drugs, said Sukhchain Singh Gill.
He said the police teams recovered 987.75-kg heroin from across the state after carrying out cordon and search operations in drug-affected areas, besides laying nakas at vulnerable routes.
Additionally, 147.5-kg heroin was recovered by the police teams from seaports of Gujarat and Maharashtra, taking the total effective recovery of heroin to 1,135-kg in just 11 months, he said.
Besides, the IGP said the police recovered 731-kg opium, 840.76-kg ganja, 350.40 quintals of poppy husk, and 62.49 lakh tablets/capsules/injections/vials of pharma opioids from across the state. The police have also recovered ₹11.83 crore of drug money from the possession of drug smugglers arrested in these 11 months.
Giving a weekly update, the IGP said in the past one week, the police arrested 308 drug smugglers/suppliers after registering 234 first information reports (FIRs) and recovered 33.73-kg heroin, 13.90-kg opium, 16.12-kg ganja, 5.85 quintals of poppy husk, and 39,004 tablets/capsules/injections/vials of pharma opioids, besides recovering ₹10.48 lakh drug money from their possession.
He said with 10 more proclaimed offenders (POs) and absconders in NDPS cases arrested in the past one week, the total number of arrests reached 906 since the special drive to arrest POs and absconders was started on July 5. (With inputs from PTI)
