Chennai: Stressing on the need for a community initiative to turn Tamil Nadu into a totally ‘narcotics-free State,’ Chief Minister M K Stalin issued a stern warning to police personnel who connived at drug trafficking, saying that he would cease to be a ‘soft Chief Minister’ and become a tyrant if any such case came to his notice.
‘I need not have to go in search of any powers to pull up such errant police officials since Section 32B (a) of the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act says “the fact that the offender holds a public office and that he has taken advantage of that office in committing the offence,” thus giving the necessary teeth to the law to deal severely with such cases,’ Stalin said on Wednesday.
He was delivering the valedictory address at the consultation meeting of district collectors and superintendents of police called to discuss the drug menace in the State when he expressed the hope that no police officer or any of his subordinates would push him to a situation where he has no alternative other than becoming a tyrant.
Urging police personnel to vehemently oppose bail for those caught for drug trafficking and related offences, in coordination with government lawyers, as the NDPS Act itself provides for taking such a stand, Stalin asked them to seek maximum punishment for those peddling drugs in schools, colleges and community centres by invoking Section 32B (d) of the Act.
Emphasizing the community’s role in fighting the drug menace along with the police, he said the narcotics intelligence wing would be soon integrated with the Prohibition Enforcement Wing and that the number of Special Essential Commodities and NDPS Courts would be increased from the present 12 to two for each district.
Other measures announced by the Chief Minister included a special Cyber Cell in the narcotics prevention wing, the strengthening of the Central Intelligence Department of the Prohibition and Enforcement Wing and an appointment of a DSP for the Narcotic Intelligence Wing in every district, all of them with the objective of eradicating drugs from the State totally.
He said the first taste of victory in the fight against drugs would be when every police inspector could aver that they had completely stopped drug trafficking and peddling in their jurisdictional limits and expressed the hope that all participants in the conference would put in their best to put an end to narcotic menace.
Earlier, inaugurating the conference at Kalaivanar Arangam, Stalin said that it was the duty of all to prevent the entry of narcotics into the State, its distribution, sales and use, besides rehabilitating those addicted to drugs.
They should all ensure that not a single person falls victim to the vice of drug use hereafter though it was regrettable that nothing much was done to stop more and more people getting addicted to narcotics during the tenure of the previous government.
Making it clear that he did not look at drug abuse as a bad or good habit but as one that ruined the abuser’s health, he said abusers only looked for a lame excuse to indulge in it. Drug abuse was not a personal problem but a social menace, he said.
Preventing drug trafficking was a collective responsibility of the society and hence people should come together to fight the social evil by first liberating those addicted to it from the habit and then making those who came out of the clutches of drugs to campaign against it.
Apart from parents, school teachers and college managements had a big role in prevention of drug abuse, besides traders and shopkeepers who should take a vow not to sell narcotics, he said, adding that those who sell drugs should be dealt with severely and their properties confiscated.
He called upon doctors and psychiatrists to educate the people about the ill-effects of drug and social service organizations to rescue those fallen prey to the habit and also rehabilitate them.
