PK Jaiswar

Tribune News Service

Amritsar, December 26

Devising a new way to nail perpetrators involved in the illegal sale of sedative pills, the Tarn Taran police, along with district administration, has asked all medical store owners not to sell medicines or syringes to minors without valid prescription from qualified doctors.

SSP, Tarn Taran, Dhruman H Nimbale also directed the chemists to install good quality CCTV cameras in their establishments, which would help in nabbing the chemist store owners indulging in the illegal activity.

“We have written to the Deputy Commissioner in this connection, so that necessary instructions from the district administration’s side could be issued,” he said.

Besides consumption of heroin, misuse of medicinal drugs or sedative pills as a substitute for drug abuse was another major reason behind rampant drug abuse. Its easy availability has also compounded the problem.

Recently, the Amritsar rural police had confiscated a huge haul of habit-forming drugs, which was being transported from Delhi in a video coach bus. A number of seizures of huge quantity of intoxicants was reported in the Malwa region as well, the SSP said. The Tarn Taran police have also made significant recoveries of intoxicants in the past. Therefore, it is understood that there is easy availability of sedative pills in the market and urgent steps were needed to curtail this, he said.

“We are not saying that all medical store owners are involved in the illegal sale of intoxicants, but there are black sheep in the market and we want to nail them,” Nimbale said, adding that if any chemist shop was found involved in the illegal trade, appropriate action would be taken and their licences would be cancelled.

CCTV cameras would help in checking whether a consumer had procured syringes or sedative pills from a particular medical store or not.