Pakistan has been pushing a huge quantity of drugs into Jammu and Kashmir in India for funding terror activities, a top police official said, warning that youth in the valley are being sucked into the drug menace in a planned manner. The remark came days after the police seized a large cache of drugs.

"Pakistan is pushing huge quantities of drugs for terror funding in a planned manner and getting our youths involved in the menace to satisfy its evil intentions," Dilbaag Singh, director-general of the Jammu and Kashmir Police, was quoted as saying by PTI news agency.

Singh was presiding over a specialized training program for his police officers in a conference, which was held in collaboration with the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) in Jammu. He also informed about growing instances of drug seizures in the union territory.

The region, caught up in a three-decade-long militancy that has claimed tens of thousands of lives, has recently seen an uptick in terror activities, including targeted assassinations of civilians, religious minorities, and police officers. The problem related to drugs has also increased over the years, prompting authorities and NGOs to start several de-addiction centers. 

On Thursday last week police seized 52 kg of heroin, Singh said, and said several similar seizures had been made in the border districts over the past few weeks.

In 2019, the Indian government, led by hardliner Prime Minister Narendra Modi, scrapped the special status of the erstwhile state of Jammu and Kashmir and bifurcated it into two union territories, bringing the whole region effectively under the administrative control of the central government.

The move, however, was followed by severe restrictions, including a complete communication blockade for months, which not only had disrupted normal life but also the modus operandi of different terror groups operating in the area. However, things began to change earlier this year, when the government started easing security restrictions, which saw a revival of terrorist violence.

Punjab, another Indian state in the north, that shares a long border with Pakistan, has long had the problem of cross-border drug smuggling for years. State officials have recently sounded alarm over the increasing instances of smuggling of drugs and weapons using drones from across the border. The state, which also shares its border in the north with Jammu and Kashmir, is battling a huge social problem of drug addiction.

Much of the drugs that comes across the border is sourced from Afghanistan, that is the largest producer of illegal opium. The Golden Crescent is the name given to one of Asia's two principal areas of illicit opium production - the other being the Golden Triangle in Southeast Asia - and is the mountainous space that overlaps three nations, Afghanistan, Iran, and Pakistan.

Much of the illegal opium trade from the region is used to fund terror activities by myriad Islamist groups that target a range of countries, from India to China, Central Asia to the Middle East. 

(SAM)