Sumit Bhargav
Rajouri and Poonch, twin border districts located along Line of Control in Jammu province of Jammu and Kashmir are not only facing the burnt of regular firing and shelling on Line of Control due to ceasefire violation by Pakistan, but are now facing a new challenge of narco-terrorism fearing large scale increase in addiction level especially among youth.
It was in 2005 when people in Rajouri and Poonch came to know about social evil of addiction of narcotics and drugs. With time, the level of addiction started to rise and now more than half dozen different kinds of products such as Heroine, Charas, Poppy Straw, Intoxicant capsules and syrup, Brown sugar are being used by addicts to cope up their thrust of addiction.
The menace of drugs and narcotics addiction seem to be taking an ugly turn in Rajouri and Poonch where a new dimension of ‘narco-terrorism through cross LoC smuggling’ is now attached with the addiction and menace of drugs and narcotics.
It was on October 2020 when police in Rajouri arrested few persons and recovered 11 kilograms of Heroine like substance worth several crore from their possession after which Poonch police too achieved the same success. More than half a dozen attempts to smuggle narcotics from Line of Control in Poonch’s Mendhar have been foiled with recovery of over 05 kilograms of Heroine by police and security agencies. Trafficking of high value Heroine in such large volume is definitely not meant for local consumption only. It indicates the presence of a wider narcotics trafficking network originating from across LoC.
This highlights the fact that nefarious elements sitting in Pak are not only trying to derail the peace in Jammu and Kashmir through terrorism but are also trying to cut its roots by spreading addiction among innocent youth and generating finance to fund terrorism.
Youth, considered as backbone of any state and nation, can shape the country and state to a new era of happiness but it is also evident that misguided youth can push its own state and nation into an era of darkness.
Narco-terrorism is a two sided threat to the country as it not only poses risk to country on security ground as money generated from this is used in militant activities but it also widens the sphere of addiction among youth as more the number of addicts more is generation of money out of it. With the economy across the LoC in dire straits, it is but natural that Pak based terrorist organizations and agencies are looking at such nefarious means to fund terrorism in India.
Not only this, most of the narcotics smuggled under narco-terrorism from Pak are found to be of high value in terms of cost and an addict of this costly narcotics will have to spend more money to get the same, and there is every possibility that such an addict can resort to unlawful acts like thefts etc to get more money or end up as a puppet in the hands of handlers sitting in their safe havens across the border.
One can summarize saying that narco terrorism rooted in Pak is a new threat for Rajouri and Poonch and there is an urgent need to sense the gravity of this threat and to take remedial and preventive measures against it.
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