Gujarat Minister of State (MoS) Harsh Sanghavi said on Monday that under the new drug policy, consumers have been kept away from prosecution and called upon a social movement against the drug menace.
Speaking at an event — Building Bridges — organised by the Ahmedabad city police in collaboration with the Gujarat Media Club (GMC) in Ahmedabad on Monday, Sanghavi also discussed measures being undertaken for “new age policing” with senior police officials.
“We have caught drugs worth above Rs 1,500 crore in four months. A drug reward policy was also announced to create new sources of information on drug us and more than 225 drug peddlers were caught… However, we have not caught a single drug user… We need a social movement to deter 20-21-year-olds from using drugs. We have to seize the drug before it enters the state,” said Sanghavi.
About the importance of cutting-edge technology for new-age policing, the minister said, “New-age policing involves hiring permanent advocates, chartered accountants and company secretaries for economic offences wing so that the chargesheets filed by police are technical… Hiring cyber experts to fight against rising cybercrime at lucrative salaries is new-age policing.”
“We are coming up with a system in the coming days in which any citizen in Gujarat will be able to lodge their complaints through the use of an app,” he added.
Ahmedabad city commissioner of police Sanjay Srivastava spoke on how the city was moving towards “paperless policing” and the use of non-lethal weapons, as part of which the city police has acquired 10 Taser guns for crowd control, in a first in Gujarat.