The District Anti-Narcotic Special Action Force (DANSAF) and crime squads have put in place an intensified checking mechanism on national and State highways to crack down on the network of inter-State and inter-district drug traffickers. The move comes in the wake of an increase in the attempts by drug pushers to smuggle commercial quantities by road using family members as cover.
The authenticity of official stickers and emblems used in vehicles is likely to be crosschecked during checking. According to police sources, fake stickers, are being used to mislead checking squads and the public.
“In one of the recent incidents, drug carriers were found adopting the same trick followed by smugglers on flights to conceal the contraband. The light stand of cameras was used to hide the drug worth ₹3 lakh,” said a police officer who was part of the checking squad.
Plainclothesmen now part of flash checking squads said no exemptions would be given to anyone during road checking in the wake of noticing incidents in which even family members were used as cover for drug smuggling. Similarly, attempts to evade surveillance cameras with fake or manipulated numbers would be tracked by the hi-tech police team, they said.
For more than a year, the movement of inter-State trucks has been under the scanner of highway patrol squads as some of the drivers have been suspected of working as carriers of large-scale drug pushers in States like Karnataka and Andhra Pradesh. Apart from the screening of goods at various check posts, flash inspections are under way at various points to impound suspicious goods.
Following a recent directive from the State Police Chief, all local police stations are closely tracking movements of frequent offenders in various drug trafficking cases with an eye on already identified hotspots.
