News
More raids but less seizures of heroin last year
Despite numerous raids carried out in the country in 2015, the quantity of heroin seized by the police was only 46 kilograms, a figure much lower than in previous years, Narcotics Bureau (PNB) said last week that.
Police spokesman ASP Ruwan Gunasekera said that although the police have been very active and had conducted several raids throughout last year arresting around 26,992 suspects in heroin related cases, major hauls of heroin have not been detected.
ASP Gunasekera said in the raids carried out last last year the police had arrested small time dealers, peddlers and those in the habit of taking drugs.
According to police statistics the PNB had seized a massive 312 kilograms of heroin and had arrested 23,331 suspects in 2014. In 2013 53,000 suspects had been arrested by the police.
The Sunday Times learns that while many education and prevention programmes are being carried out by the National Dangerous Drugs Control Board (NDDCB) and the Prisons Department to rehabilitate the drug users, the police have little or no involvement in the rehabilitation process.
ASP Gunasekera said the police depended totally on the family and the schools to teach children good values that would keep them away from drugs. He said that religious institutions and the media are expected to play a major role in rehabilitating offenders.
Records show that the police have shown a greater interest in rehabilitation of drug offenders in the past.
Retd. Senior Deputy Inspector General, H.M.S.Herath said he had been actively involved in the eradication of the drug menace during his tenure of service from 1974 to 2008.
He said that in his 34 years in the police force he had been working with youth preventing them from using drugs.
The work of the police does not stop at the enforcement level but also involves prevention and rehabilitation. In 2001 when he was DIG of the Narcotics Bureau, he together with the Terrorism Investigation Division had been responsible for seizing 102 kilograms of heroin later.
Following these detections there was a scarcity of heroin resulting in some drug users committing suicide.
DIG Herath said that this prompted him to look into the social aspect and made him introduce the ‘Amaridu’ programme in 2006 where the police force involved itself in teaching life skills to school children, youth and adults.
Under the banner ‘school education for every child’ a survey on non-school going children was done in August 2005 in the Wattala police division, as a pilot project.
The survey identified 347 children not attending school because of financial difficulties.
“We admitted the children to schools along with the necessary finances,” he said. Later the project was extended to the other regions of the Western Province.
Apart from this under his leadership the police have carried out several awareness programs on road safety.
Programmes were conducted in schools informing children on the hazards of consuming illegal drugs. “Involving them to police cadetting has also been fruitful in teaching them law and order and instilling discipline into them,” DIG Herath said.
Under a new banner ‘Swimming and life saving programme’ children were taught to swim – a life saving method that would help to save their lives and those of others.
This also brought down the number of deaths of youth caused by drowning.
These programmes also had an overall effect on the number of suicides in his time. According to police statistics 8,519 persons had committed suicide in 1995 but the figures almost halved in 2004 to 4876 persons.
The downturn in the number of cases is attributed to the ardent work done by the police with the youth during his time.
The ‘Amaridu’ programme was extended to the prisons reaching out to the male and female prisoners providing them with basic education. “The intention was to give them an education that will help them think positively and turn them away from crime,” he said.
DIG Herath laments that after his retirement in 2008 all the work he had being doing with the youth has come to a standstill and that his successors had failed to continue the work.