Seasoned politician Mehmood Khan Achackzai told the Public Accounts Committee Tuesday that around one million heroin addicts consume 1,000 kg of heroin but the relevant departments have failed to stop it. “The heroin is smuggled into Pakistan from Afghanistan through Balochistan and it seems that no solid steps were taken to stop this smuggling into Pakistan,” he told the meeting in which the appropriation accounts relating to the Narcotics Control Division for the financial year 2009-10 were examined. He alleged that the personnel of Anti-Narcotics Force accepted bribes for not destroying the poppy fields. Another member of the PAC, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed, observed that the police was involved in providing narcotics in jails to the drugs addicts and even the drug smugglers do not apply for bail as they feel secure in the jails while their business keeps flourishing. “In most of the cases the drug smugglers give the money to the police to register the cases against them so that they could spend maximum time in jails,” he remarked. The Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) has only 1,600 staff members to counter over 40 per cent drug trafficking of the world via Pakistan. The official said due to the shortage of staff, the ANF was facing difficulty in deploying enforcers at the Multan airport from where international flights were started recently. Over 43 per cent of drugs trafficked globally are trafficked through Pakistan, a reality hardly likely to endear the country to the international community that are the unhappy recipients of the drugs that pass through the Land of the Pure. Afghanistan is the origin of the majority of the opioids that move through, but locally grown opium poppies make their own contribution. The ANF is desperately overstretched, and made that point to the PAC, saying that it was having difficulty covering Multan airport that has recently opened for international flights. It is of note that the ANF covers 13 international airports and three seaports. With domestic consumption rising and there being no diminution in poppy-growing in Afghanistan where it is a major Taliban revenue source, the drug producers and smugglers are enjoying a hey-day. Drug money is laundered into real estate both here and abroad, and underwrites other criminal activity. There is an anti-narcotics policy, which was formulated in 2013, designed to reduce supply and demand, as well as seeking international cooperation, but it appears to have had little impact.
pk.shafaqna.com
