Operation against drug dealers in the offing: minister

Chawla tells Sindh Assembly drive will also target educational institutions

KARACHI:

The Sindh excise and taxation minister told the provincial assembly that a "grand operation" to eliminate drugs from the metropolitan city was in the works.

"We are devising a comprehensive plan for an operation against drugs peddlers," said Mukesh Kumar Chawla while responding to a call attention notice moved by Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) MPA Abdul Rashid in the house on Friday.

He said his ministry had taken all stakeholders into confidence for the operation. We have put measures in place at the provincial borders to stop drug smuggling, he added.

A high-level meeting was also convened with the Rangers, police and education department officials while planning the crackdown.

Talking about the supply of drugs in colleges and universities, he said that it was a priority to free educational campuses of the scourge of drugs.

The MMA lawmaker, in his call-attention notice, said that drugs were being sold openly in different areas of Karachi, especially in Lyari and Keamari. He said that the use of drugs had a huge role in the worsening law and order situation in the city.

A whopping 42 tons of drugs are consumed in Karachi every year, he said while asking the provincial government as to what steps it had taken to eradicate this menace. "Drug dens are the root cause of the Lyari gang war. The law enforcement agencies are also fully aware of this heinous act," he added.

Census concern

During the session, GDA MPA Nand Kumar Goklani moved a call-attention notice on the census issue and expressed concern over the impartially of the exercise.

"As per schedule, the census will start in March-April. But we don't see any awareness campaign on the part of census authorities," he said. Goklani added that different parties and stakeholders had serious reservations on the last census and how these concerns would be addressed now.

Chawla, who also holds the portfolio of parliamentary affairs, said the Sindh government would ensure that no injustice was done to Sindh in the coming digital census.Earlier, Irrigation Minister Jam Khan Shoro said that his department had been lobbying with the federal government to implement the 1991 water accord under which Sindh could get sufficient water, but all in vain.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 18^th, 2023.