Eluru: Students’ help sought to check drug supply

Eluru : Eluru Range DIG GVG Ashok Kumar has urged students to help the police by sharing information regarding drug peddlers in order to prevent use of drugs and arrest drug supply activity in all the districts of the Range.

He was chief guest at an awareness programme on drugs for students organised at Ashram Hospital auditorium here on Friday. Speaking on the occasion, the DIG said that information regarding the students, who alert police on drug peddlers and their use or any information regarding drugs, would be kept secret, he assured.

Ashok Kumar further said that the students should share such information with the SI of the nearest police station, or State Enforcement Bureau (SEB) toll-free number 14500 or Eluru police control room number 8332959175 or Eluru district SP WhatsApp number 9550351100.

DIG Ashok Kumar informed the students that under narcotics Act, those who are in possession of drugs, selling or transporting may get imprisonment up to 20 years. One of the reasons for presence of drugs in the State was due to forest land abutting Andhra-Orissa border where the cultivation of drugs was going on. The government identified the cultivated areas and destroyed the crop during the past four-and-a-half years, he claimed.

In his address, Ashram Hospital principal G Krishnamurthy said that among the vices, drug abuse was the serious one distracting the youth who are the backbone for the nation.

SEB additional SP N Suryachandra Rao said that they have been educating youth on the ill-effects of drugs as per the directives of Chief Minister YS Jagan Mohan Reddy. Hospital CEO Hanumantha Rao, assistant enforcement superintendent Amara Babu, district Task Force inspector Krishna Dhana Raju and others were present.