India, Pak warm up to drugs hotline

While India and Pakistan continue to trade charges following adviser to Pakistan prime minister on interior affairs Rehman Malik’s India visit, considerable camaderie in yet another area of mutual concern may lead to setting up of a hotline to combat the menace of narcotic drugs in both countries.

While India and Pakistan continue to trade charges following adviser to Pakistan prime minister on interior affairs Rehman Malik’s India visit, considerable camaderie in yet another area of mutual concern may lead to setting up of a hotline to combat the menace of narcotic drugs in both countries.

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The proposal came from Pakistan’s Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF), which underlined the need for a hotline between the heads of the ANF and India’s Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB). “The idea is to generate better coordination to combat the scourge of drugs and enable real-time sharing of information,” a government official told HT.

Pakistan’s plan came up during a meeting between the director generals of NCB and the ANF.

“We are not only concerned with the inflow from Afghanistan which produces 90% of the world’s heroin, but also with the outflow to India,” Major General Malik Zafar Iqbal, director general, ANF, had told HT.

Sources said less than 20% of the heroin — pushed into Pakistan from Afghanistan — is smuggled to India.

Sources added that Pakistan has shared information on the role of an India-based private company in trafficking of acetic anhydride, a precursor chemical for heroin. India in turn has given information on suspected Pakistani drug smugglers.