Bengaluru sees sharp spike in drug seizures, cases

BENGALURU: With an alarming increase in drug trafficking in the country since the outbreak of the pandemic, Bengaluru has also earned itself the infamy of becoming a narco-hub. The number of cases, seizures and arrests registered under the Narcotic Drugs & Psychotropic Substances (NDPS) Act, 1985, by the city police, Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB), Customs and Directorate of Revenue Intelligence (DRI) this year indicate the phenomenal increase in the demand for banned narcotic drugs in comparison to the preceding three years.  

Cases registered under NDPS Act since 2018 have also shown a phenomenal increase — from 285 in 2018 to 2,550 as on August end this year. In 2018, the city police had seized 290 LSD strips and in 2019, 155 strips were seized.

Last year,  540 strips were seized and as on August 31 this year, 10,900 strips have been confiscated. There has also been an increase in the seizure of Ecstasy tablets since 2019, when the police had seized 1,500 tablets. In 2020, 7,000 tablets were seized. This year, till August-end, 6,900 tablets have been seized. The biggest recovery has been of Ganja (cannabis). The city police seized 750 kg of the contraband in 2018, 1,050 kg in 2019, 3,870 kg in 2020 and 2,710 kg till August this year. 

According to sources, ganja reportedly comes from the Maoist belt in Odisha, Telangana and Andhra Pradesh.  The NCB statistics also convey a “three-fold rise in NDPS cases since 2019 in Bengaluru City,” said Director, NCB, Bengaluru zone, Amit Ghawate. This year, the NCB has registered 49 cases, seized 9,700 kg of contraband drugs and arrested 108 people under the drug law. “A lot of synthetic drugs have been seized from Bengaluru City,” Ghawate pointed out.