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The students were involved in the supply chain of over a kilogram of Charas and LSD blot papers to Jaipur and around NCR.

In a major development before the New Year celebrations, the Delhi Zonal Unit of Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) arrested four students from across the top Delhi Colleges on Saturday. Among the arrested were Sam Mallick from Jawaharlal Nehru University, Gaurav Kumar and Tenzin Phunchog from Hindu College of University of Delhi and Anirudh Mathur from Amity University. The arrest was made after the the Narcotics Bureau received information on 28 December about the drug use and peddling around these campuses.

“For the last few months, NCB Delhi Zonal unit had been receiving inputs about drug peddling and intense abuse of drugs around institutional areas like Delhi University, Jawaharlal University and Amity University,” Times of India quoted S K Jha, Deputy Director General, NCB as saying.

Acoording to sources of the department, the authorities were given intelligence reports about a parcel of banned substances dispatched to Jaipur via DTDC, following which they reached the Vijay Nagar DTDC office and confiscated the consignment containing 1.14 kg Charas and 3 strips of LSD (Lysergic acid diethylamide). The source was traced and the students were subsequently arrested. However, the major actor behind the drug racket functioning from Himachal Pradesh, Neelchand, is still at large.

The authorities confirmed that the students will be prosecuted under the Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985.

 

Feature Image Credits: ANI

Nikhil Kumar
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As a step towards spreading awareness about abusive drug consumption by students, Mirror Now, a National News television channel hosted a debate at Indraprastha College for Women, to have a one-on-one conversation with the students.

 

Ms. Faye D’Souza, the Executive Editor at Mirror News, along with five panelists, hosted a debate in the campus of Indraprastha College for Women on Thursday, August 31, 2017, in the college’s auditorium. The panel included a practicing advocate and member of the Bharatiya Yuva Janata Morcha, a pediatrician with significant contribution in the field, the DCP of Delhi police, a script writer hailing from the Bollywood industry, and a student of the college.

With the aim of initiating a dialogue between the general consumers of drugs and those opposing the consumption, D’Souza started by discussing its easy accessibility around educational institutes by taking the Hyderabad drug bust case as an example. Inviting opinions from one of the panelists, Nandini Suri, who is also a student of the college, the panelists discussed about the urgent need of enabling a communication about the issue at a national level, between the country’s leaders and the general masses. One of the panelists who is a practicing advocate at the Supreme Court and a member of the Bhartiya Yuva Janata Morcha, the student wing of Bharatiya Janata Part (BJP), talked about the provisions in the Indian Constitution that prevent the illegal circulation and consumption of drugs, which widened the debate’s horizon to the connection between drug consumption and the law’s role in curbing it.

Further opening the debate to the audience which primarily comprised of students from the college, various concerns and angles about the issue came to the fore. The primary issue discussed was the vulnerability of an average teenager, and the corruptibility of the Police Force which has enabled a manifold increase in such rackets across the country. The debate included the aftermaths of abusive drug consumption, however casual or occasional it may be. One of the panelists, the DCP of Delhi Police added, how even casual or occasional consumption of drugs facilitates other rackets including human trafficking etc. The students also raised questions about the validation provided to drugs’ or alcohol consumption, majorly by Bollywood and/or the entertainment industry, and its subsequent influence on teenagers.

 

Faye D’Souza, in her concluding note, welcomed solutions to fight the problem, where one of the panelists put forward “flipping the peer pressure” as one of the solutions that might prevent many teenagers from being consumed by this culture of abuse.

With the debate, Mirror Now took their responsible step towards preventing an entire generation which is at stake.

 

Feature Image Credits: Priyal Mahtta for DU Beat

 

Priyal Mahtta

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I am not here to tell you why one should possess knowledge and awareness about the affairs of our society rather I am here to help you increase your awareness about a topic that is gaining much attention in the media these days, i.e. the proposed cuts in the movie Udta Punjab by our country’s Censor Board.

The Chief of the Censor Board, Pahlaj Nihalani is being criticised everyday for many different reasons. Some claim that his order for 89 cuts in the film and an instruction to delete all references to the state of Punjab, including the reference in the title, are driven by his political bias and pressure from the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP). The controversy has led to political conflicts with Congress and AAP accusing the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and its partner BJP for influencing censor board’s decision. 

People have also been furious with the state as it is yet again seen curbing the freedom of speech. The censor board chief has been called an “oligarch” and a “dictator” and living in India has been compared to living in North Korea.  But, why are the people surprised? These debates about free speech have time and again re-surfaced in our country and have never been resolved.  May it be the banning of documentaries, agitation over comedians organising roasts or mimicking celebrities, students being denied the freedom to speak their mind in a university campus, or books being censored, we, Indians, with the largest democracy, have seen it all. Hence, rather than being amused by the censoring of a movie, we should converge our focus on why it is being censored or ordered with demands of cuts. Everyone knows the movie is on the drug problem of Punjab but how many of us really know what exactly the drug problem is.

An Overview of the Drug Abuse in Punjab

The drug use- primarily the intake of opium — had been part of the social and cultural compass long before Punjab was partitioned and divided. Small doses of opium were considered healthy and necessary. But, soon the drug use changed into a drug abuse for various reasons.

There was a growing influence of the surrounding states on Punjab. For example, the state of Rajasthan, a neighbouring state, where opium was, and still is, served like paan in weddings, had an effect on Punjab’s culture.

The rise of the Green Revolution also aggravated the problem. Big farmers supplied opium and poppy husk to labourers “since it served like machine oil” and increased the productivity of the workers. Even the truck drivers, with the onset of Industrialisation, took to drugs as it helped them drive for longer hours.

There was also a change from poppy husk and opium to the lethal heroin or smack, and later synthetic drugs. Experts trace this to the heavy flow of heroin through the then unfenced border with Pakistan in the 1980s. 

All these factors combined with the declining growth rates of the rural economy, the influx of migrants, the educated rural youth facing lack of jabs, and the culture of aspiration and expectation, which quickly swerves to depression when things don’t fall in place led to the citizens surrendering to this addiction.

The jeopardy the state is in and its consequences

Behind closed doors in the streets of Punjab, families are breaking down and friends are being lost to this menace.

The National Drug Dependence Treatment Centre (NDDTC) at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences along with the NGO Society for Promotion of Youth and Masses conducted a study on the drug problem of Punjab. The results were staggering and showed that from a population of approximately 2.77 crore (27.7 million) people, around 2.3 million people are opioid-dependent, around 860,000 people are estimated to be opioid users. More than 123,000 people are heroin-dependent.

Out of all the patients that come, 80 per cent of the patients brought to the centre have tried quitting drugs, but only 35 per cent have succeeded in getting some kind of treatment in deaddiction centres.

Doctors have claimed that husbands often get their wives hooked on drugs so that they are not prevented from consuming them and also, as this will lead to not hiding anything at home.

The other source of concern is the fear that increasing use of drug will lead to an HIV/AIDS epidemic. “Delhi is paying more attention to the use of injectables. Drug users in the capital are being given clean needles and syringes so that they can take drugs in a safer manner. The reason why this is being made available to drug users is so as to control HIV/AIDS. India has been applauded for this. The Punjab government needs to pay attention to this as a key step to control HIV” says Dr Atul Ambedkar of AIIMS, the principal author of the NDDTC study.

There are many more grave consequences of this addiction which is destroying the state and is not letting the citizens have a chance at a normal, healthy life. And this chance will be forever denied to them if the political class remains evasive and continues their denial. This denial also explains the hostility with which Udta Punjab is now being treated. So, what I propose is don’t be dependent on the mercy of the Censor Board. Empower yourself with knowledge and research more about this menace. This movie, if nothing else, should at least become a catalyst for the population of India to have a desire to not remain oblivious and become aware of the different problems of its different states.

Image Credits: www.india.com

Nishita Agarwal

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