Kerala: Excise worried over courier drugs'

KOZHIKODE: Though there is security screening at the airports for the products being imported and exported, there is hardly any checks for the couriers within the country. Excise officials say the unchecked couriers pose an enormous threat as many a time drugs went through them. Excise commissioner Rishiraj Singh said though the threat is complicated, the inspections at the check posts would be intensified.

"There is no proper mechanism as such to screen the parcels and couriers as they reach the dispatch points in covered packets. Still, we are thinking of various measures to curb the menace, reported from different parts of the state in the recent past. Intensifying checks at the check posts and random checkings would give the desired effect," he told DC.

"Excise officials are helpless unless they get a tip-off," said Kollam division circle inspector B. Suresh, who had led several combing operations involving 'courier drugs'. "It is easier to track the sender and recipient once the courier and parcel companies have made it compulsory to show the address and contact numbers on the packet."

Though the parcel companies insist on giving the purchase list of the materials being sent, small packets of the drugs can be transmitted through unchecked courier packets. Officials say, even one kilogramme of heroin would cost around Rs 20 lakh in the Indian market. In Ernakulam, 800 kg of ganja was found abandoned by Railway police and in Thiruvananthapuram, last year, 460 kg of ganja was found in a packet sent through a parcel agency.