Busting ‘Narco-Naxal’ syndicates, sleuths unearth lucrative rail routes (IANS Exclusive)

By Deepak Sharma New Delhi, March 12 : In one of the biggest ongoing covert operations against top drug syndicates, the security agencies have unmasked one of the two most lucrative routes in the country from where contraband narcotics were being smuggled to New Delhi in North, and Hyderabad in southern India.
Both the routes were being used by drug syndicates operating from Myanmar and Naxal groups based in the Odisha-Andhra Pradesh Maoist corridor.
With the tacit backing of Narcod( Narcotics related coordination agency), the Railway Protection Force(RPF) busted several smuggling gangs operating on East Coast Railways and Northeast Frontier Railways.
“Our Special Intelligence Branch developed key inputs of central agencies and discovered that gangs were uploading drugs from Guwahati, Bhubaneswar and Visakhapatnam stations for New Delhi and Hyderabad. Special cavities in railway bogies, in which drugs were being packed, were unearthed. The involvement of Naxalites has been found,” Director General of RPF, Arun Kumar told IANS.
One of the hotspots of drug smuggling identified by RPF was Malkangiri, one of the districts worst affected by Naxalism, in Odisha. The drugs were being first smuggled into Andhra Pradesh and later uploaded from Visakhapatnam railway station. Zeroing-in on the Bhubaneswar to Visakhapatnam route, the RPF registered 24 cases, arrested 35 drug peddlers and seized contraband narcotics worth over Rs 91.27 lakh last year when minimum rail traffic was operational during Covid restrictions. The South Central Railway too registered 32 cases and arrested 17 drug peddlers last year.
Reports say that Naxal groups in Odisha, Chhattisgarh and Andhra Pradesh continue to use drug money to raise cadres and buy arms and ammunition. “To a great extent, we have identified the major rail routes and plugged the source of transporting drugs into various parts of country. On 11th April 2019, the RPF was given powers under the Narcotics Drugs and Psychotropic Substance(NDPS) act to seize drugs and arrest people involved in smuggling. The results have been fruitful,” said Arun Kumar, a 1985 batch IPS officer.