The Excise Department will organise a half marathon on the Kozhikode beach at 5.30 a.m. on Sunday, upholding the motto ‘Let’s run against drug abuse’.
The event being hosted under the Vimukthi anti-substance abuse campaign is expected to draw the participation of over 2,000 registered candidates, including 40 transgender persons and delegates from African countries.
“Our effort is to promote sports activities among youngsters as it will be an effective tool for deviating their attention from substance abuse. We have witnessed good participation of youths who expressed solidarity with the department’s sporty initiative in previous marathon events,” Excise Commissioner Rishiraj Singh told the media on Saturday.
Mr. Singh said the half-marathon covering about 15 km in Kozhikode would ensure the participation of people from all strata of society and send a message against drug abuse.
“There will be prizes worth ₹2 lakh. For small children, there will be a separate fun ride,” he said.
Preventive measures
Referring to the enforcement activities and surveillance measures in place to fight drug smuggling and substance abuse, Mr. Singh said Kerala did not have a “big drug mafia or racket”.
“Our State is not a production centre of any narcotic stuff. What we seize are smuggled products from other locations such as Andhra Pradesh, Telangana, Maharasthra and Tamil Nadu. And, all efforts are in place to stop this flow,” he added.
Field-level action
Mr. Singh said he would soon meet the police and Excise higher-ups in Andhra Pradesh and Telangana to discuss the scope of conducting more field-level action and inter-State coordination in enforcement activities. “We hope that the enforcement squads there will be able to track the source of illegal consignments at the origin itself and prevent its dispatch to Kerala. Similar discussions earlier held with the authorities in Tamil Nadu and Karnataka had helped us succeed in the effort,” he said.
Luggage checking
To a question on the suspicious shipping of drugs and other illegal items misusing the inter-State bus services, Mr. Singh said the Excise checking squads faced a lot of technical difficulties in scanning all the luggage or goods loaded in an inter-State bus during surprise inspections. “What we do usually is the checking of hand baggage of passengers. The difficulty in conducting a detailed inspection during routine checking is that it will take at-least three hours and may annoy passengers,” he added.