Hyderabad High on Cocaine, No special cell to fight drugs

By U Sudhakar Reddy
Several drug busts in the past few months seem to suggest that national and international drug dealers are finding Hyderabad a lucrative market. Yet the state and city police have no special mechanism and infrastructure to fight the growing menace of organised drug racketeers.

Cocaine is said to be the drug of choice for Hyderabad’s wealthy elite and other drugs like amphetamine have made inroads into cities such as Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam. School-going children and college students are increasingly being targeted.
Police, who are on the front line of the war on drugs, say there is an urgent need for an Anti-Narcotics Cell in the Hyderabad and Cyberabad police commissionerates. An existing cell in the Crime Investigation Department is defunct and has not exposed a single racket in the past decade, and needs to be upgraded.
The state police has neither the equipment, such as field testing kits, nor the training to test drugs when they are seized; they have to depend on the Directorate of Revenue Intelligence or the Narcotics Control Bureau. Trained sniffer dogs that can track drug consignments at airports and seaports are also required.
There is no dearth of agencies to implement the Narcotics and Psychotropic Substances Act — police, excise, Drug Control Administration, CID at state level, DRI, Customs and NCB at central level — but there is no co-ordination among them, which is to the advantage of drug peddlers.
The city police has busted nine major cases of drug racketeering, mostly of cocaine, in the past four months.
Sources in the Narcotics Control Bureau say drug cartels see India as a rising market for cocaine and Hyderabad has been listed as a top priority city. “Go to any college, and you will find that drugs are the most common thing right now,” says West Zone deputy commissioner of police, Mr Stephen Raveendra. “Pushers on the party circuit drag others into this. Cocaine has become a status symbol for the elite. This is in colleges in Vijayawada and Visakhapatnam too. The culture of using high-end drugs is increasing after more youngsters who studied abroad are returning home to Hyderabad.”
Recently, the city police arrested a drug peddler whose call list had the phone numbers of 150 IT professionals who are addicted to a high-quality form of ganja. “Cocaine, Lysergic Acid Diathylamide (LSD), a psychoactive hallucinogenic drug, and meth crystals are the most commonly used illegal drugs in the city. Cocaine, popularly called coke or crack, costs `3,000 to `5,000 per gram, and a drop of LSD costs `1,500 to `2,000. LSD is absorbed on paper and smuggled in,” said Mr Raveendra.
Cocaine finds its way to Hyderabad from South Africa, Afghanistan, and Burma, via Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru and Pune. The drugs are smuggled onto flights hidden in the body cavities of carriers. Drugs are also shipped and parcelled in.
Though police commissioner, Mr A.K. Khan, has ordered a zero tolerance policy towards drugs, legal experts say that the conviction rate is low in NDPS Act cases.
“Though the provisions are stringent, the police department has no field testing kits or the training that the DRI has. In most cases only drug ‘mules’ or couriers are caught. The handlers who are based in other countries and metros are not arrested. So the drug rackets continue and only the mules change,” says Mr T.K. Basha Vali, a lawyer.
He believes that the NDPS Act should also be amended to allow confessions before the police to be admitted as evidence in court, as in the case of special investigating agencies like the DRI and Customs.
Another twist in the drug tale is that even as the police crack down on drugs smuggled from overseas, like cocaine, users are switching to synthetic narcotics like amphetamine, ephedrine and crystal meth.
Central Crime Station deputy commissioner, Mr J. Satyanarayana, says the crackdown by police is having some effect. “CCS has busted three gangs in the past few months. Due to the sustained raids, cocaine has become expensive," he said