Need for coordinated war on rogue drug networks

Hyderabad: Is it time for the Central agencies to play their part in hunting down to crush the growing menace of the drug peddling networks actively spreading their tentacles in Telangana and Andhra Pradesh?

If the goings-on are any indication, raids and catching drugs have become a regular phenomenon across the districts of the Telugu speaking States.

Particularly, the growing incidents of school and college-going students falling prey to the menace is turning disturbing. Besides, the number of incidents on a regular scale busted by the Telangana police around the areas of Gachibowli, falling under the financial district, raises the question that the rogue networks are targeting to expand their footprints into the IT corridor. In many of the incidents, the accused were arrested by the Telangana police, pointing fingers at the rogue networks sourcing ganja from Chinturu area of the Andhra-Odisha border area.

However, the Andhra Pradesh police from the Alluri Sitharamaraju (ASR) district claimed that they were acting tough against ganja cultivation and destroyed it in the Chinturu area of the district, pointing fingers that the ganja being seized by the police in Telangana is the stock cultivated and transported from the Malkangiri district of Odisha. On the other, the Odisha police claim that the banned substance is being cultivated about 10 km away in a remote area near Chinturu. The terrain troubles from the Malkangiri side of Odisha are being taken advantage of by the cultivators. The ganja cultivation is being taken up, including laying water resources from Chinturu. Though the area falls under Odisha, the peddlers can easily move the stocks from the Andhra Pradesh side.

Against this backdrop, both the Telangana and Andhra Pradesh State governments have decided to mount coordinated efforts against the drug menace.

However, an additional layer added to the menace is the involvement of shady characters investing in these activities from another Southern State of Tamil Nadu and States like Uttar Pradesh.

Apart from the multiple arrests of foreigners engaged in drug trafficking into Hyderabad by the Telangana Police, the latest is the entry of people from the states of Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan appears that Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, and in particular, Hyderabad city is a target area for the rogue networks to spread the drug menace.

Should the Central enforcement agencies too pull up their socks and join the efforts of TG and AP? Especially as observed against the changing characteristics of drug peddling, human resources and networks spread across multiple states – from border areas of Andhra-Odisha to Telangana, Tamil Nadu, Madhya Pradesh, Uttar Pradesh and Rajasthan?