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In Punjab, most of the arrests related to drug crimes have been of small-time peddlers and addicts, and no big drug lord has been put behind bars, reports The Indian Express. The investigative report claims that these arrests are made to mostly fill up numbers while drug lords in the state remain free.
After a crackdown announced by Home Minister and Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal in May 2014, the police have arrested 17,068 in 2014 and 11,593 more in December 2015.
Shashi Kant, former Director General of Police (Prisons), believes that no “drug lord worth his name” is behind bars. Kant now runs an Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO) named Nasha Virodhi Manch to help drug addicts in the state.
Perhaps these largely ineffectual arrests hinder Punjab’s war on drugs, much like censorship of the movie Udta Punjab does.
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