Chandigarh
\nPunjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday made a strong recommendation to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for amending the existing laws to provide for death penalty for first-time drug smugglers and peddlers.<\/p>\n
Taking forward his Cabinet\u2019s decision on the issue, the Chief Minister has written a D.O letter to the Union Home Minister seeking urgent steps to initiate the process of amending the NDPS Act to provide for more deterrent punishment to drug offenders.<\/p>\n
\u201cGiven the magnitude of the problem, which had been denied during the last many years, these enforcement measures though yielding results, need to be further strengthened. In this direction, it is felt that the existing drug prevention and control laws should be revisited to provide for more deterrent punishment to the offenders,\u201d wrote the Chief Minister, citing the various measures already taken by his government to enforce the existing laws to prevent drug abuse as also to ensure rehabilitation and de-addiction of those who indulge in it.<\/p>\n
Needless to say, \u201cthe intensive action plan unfolded and executed by us during the last over a year has resulted in arrest of 18977 drug peddlers and treatment of more than 2 lakh drug victims,\u201d he has pointed out. Giving further details, the Chief Minister has revealed that more than 3977 NDPS convicts and 5610 NDPS undertrials are in different prisons of the state. The state government has already initiated a mass awareness programme, namely the Drug Abuse Prevention Officers\u2019 Prevention (DAPOs) Programme, which is aimed at effective participation of civil society in prevention of drug abuse in the State, the letter further reads.<\/p>\n
In his letter, the Chief Minister has further pointed out that the existing Narcotic Drugs and Psychotropic Substances Act, 1985, provides for death penalty for certain offences if these are committed for a second time. This means that a person can indulge in these nefarious activities and get away at least once, causing substantial damage to the youth and the society, he lamented.<\/p>\n
His government, said Captain Amarinder Singh, felt that this should not be allowed to happen and even first-time offenders should be awarded death penalty for offences which are clearly elaborated in Section 31 A of the NDPS Act, 1985. \u201cWe have come to this conclusion after a comprehensive discussion and feel that resultant deterrence of provisions of death penalty in the Act ibid, will help us in effectively containing if not eliminating the drug peddlers and mafia operating not only in Punjab, but also in other parts of the Country,\u201d he has written in his letter.<\/p>\n
The Chief Minister apprised Rajnath about the magnitude of the drug problem in Punjab, noting that drug dealing and peddling has caused serious strains on the state\u2019s human and economic resources. \u201cThese are being realized as major obstacles in the state\u2019s socio-economic development,\u201d he said, adding that \u201cthe menace of drugs is affecting the present generation of youth not only in Punjab, but also in the neighbouring states.\u201d His government was fully committed to its eradication, he added.<\/p>\n
The Chief Minister has urged the Home Minister to advise the concerned officers of the Ministry of Home Affairs, Government of India, to pursue the Punjab Government\u2019s proposal to make the necessary amendment to the NDPS Act to save the youth and the society from the menace of drugs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chandigarh Punjab Chief Minister Captain Amarinder Singh on Wednesday made a strong recommendation to Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh for amending the existing laws to provide for death penalty for first-time drug smugglers and peddlers. Taking forward his Cabinet\u2019s decision on the issue, the Chief Minister has written a D.O letter to the Union Home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":36118,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[314,315],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-36117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-punjab","category-top-stories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=36117"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":36120,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/36117\/revisions\/36120"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/36118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blastingskyhawk.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}