Police to launch campaign against drug abuse in Bathinda

The police on Saturday decided to launch ‘Ubharda Bathinda’ (Rising Bathinda) campaign against rampant drug abuse in the district. The campaign will focus on spreading awareness and participation from the community.

The police on Saturday decided to launch ‘Ubharda Bathinda’ (Rising Bathinda) campaign against rampant drug abuse in the district. The campaign will focus on spreading awareness and participation from the community.

SSP Swapan Sharma (C) during a meeting with other police officers in Bathinda on Saturday. (HT Photo)

This development comes after latest directive from deputy chief minister, which stated that the police should register cases against drug lords, attach their properties and break the supply chain of smugglers with a month. He also directed them to special programmes to make people aware about the problem at villages and at ward level in urban areas.

Presiding over a meeting of senior police functionaries, station house officers and other police officers to chart out the strategy for the campaign here, Bathinda SSP Swapan Sharma said that the basic aim of this project was to eradicate drug abuse with massive community participation.

It was decided in the meeting that village, town, city level committees would be formed wherein the representatives of youth clubs will have major role to play. Members of these committees will work towards motivating youngsters away from the drug abuse and play active role in putting an end to this menace.

Sharma said that these committees would work under SHOs and the SSP would be district level in-charge. Members of these committees will be issued identity cards and the committees performing well will be honored, he said.

Sharma said that the strategy of these committees would be to focus on demand side of drug supply and addiction cycle. “Since the members of these committees are from within the society, it will penetrate at the family level with support. While the SHOs will head the police station level committees, DSPs will be in-charge of the sub divisional level committees and SPs will be in-charge of each cluster comprising of villages, wards, colleges and universities,” said SSP.

In addition to this, the committees will achieve their aim through personal contact, distribution of study material and helping the addicts come out of dependence of drugs, he informed.

There will be personal visits by all ranks of district police to ensure the success of this initiative, he added.