Nikhil Bhardwaj Tribune News Service Ludhiana August 18 Despite the fact that the Ludhiana Commissionerate has a large number of officers several special cells and enough infrastructure it performed poorly in drug recovery. The Special Task Force (STF) wing of the Ludhiana range used to make drug recovery in kilograms while the drug recovery count of the city police which have a big number of officers is far less than the STF. However the number of smugglers arrested by the Ludhiana police is more than the STF in terms of recovery of all types of drugs and drug money. Led by Ludhiana Commissioner of Police Rakesh Agrawal and being assisted by several senior officers CIA drug units 28 police stations the city police are making recovery of drugs in gms only while the STF wing has been recovering drugs in kgs worth crores. As per data procured from the STF from March 2017 to till date it arrested 522 smugglers from the jurisdiction of the Ludhiana Commissionerate registered 246 cases of drugs and recovered 242 kg of heroin/ice 1335 kg of poppy husk 58.5 kg of opium 34-lakh intoxicating tablets 2.97 crore drug money etc. Despite these recoveries and arrests from the city police limits the Ludhiana police failed to make such big recoveries. Inspector Harbans Singh in-charge STF Ludhiana told The Tribune that the STF would continue to perform better and more smugglers would be arrested to wipe out the drug menace. “Whenever we arrest any smuggler we always try to bust the entire supply line by exploring backward and forward linkages and many a times we have also nabbed main smugglers living in other states” Harbans said. Though the STF has only one cell in Ludhiana it is making huge recoveries of drugs. The STF wing which caters to the Ludhiana Commissionerate Jagraon Khanna and Nawanshahr has a staff of only 50 personnel including the office staff of which only 25 persons are available for field work. Former DGP DR Bhatti said the STF was an exclusive agency working against drugs and the Police Commissionerate had lot of other duties such as law and order other crimes investigations. However the Commissionerate should achieve good results in drug recovery.

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