From Our Bureau
NEW DELHI: The Congress on Friday questioned Prime Minister Modi and Home Minister Amit Shah for the flourishing drug syndicates in their homestate since July 2017.
Releasing a lit of the recoveries made from the coastline of Gujarat, including Mundra Port owned by Modi’s friend Gautam Adani and Pipavav Port owned by his another friend Nikhil Gandhi, Congress spokesman Pawan Khera told a Press conference here said all these recoveries are taking place in Gujarat alone, which has become a gateway of drugs in India.
He also questioned the government for not appointing a full-time head of the Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) for 18 months. Referring to a government’s reply in the Rajya Sabha on October 6, 2021 that the NIA has been handed over the case of the recoveries of the drugs in Gujarat, Khera wanted to know what are the findings of the NIA in this critical case.
“We are not trying to corner the government, but we are raising the question time and again since we want to protect the futuregenerations of India,” he said.
He referred to a major smuggling of 25 tonnes of drugs worth Rs 1,75,000 crore through the Mundra Port of Adani that went unchecked as the booty was transported to various parts of the country through nine trucks. Can this happen without teh active connivance and colusion of the authorities, he asked.
Khera said after a lot of Congress pressure, the Mundra port announced not to handle cargo from Iran, Pakistan and Afghanistan. That was in October 21. But the truth is that only on May 26, 52 kg of cocain worth Rs 500 crore was recovered from the same Mundra port that had come from Iran.
He said the drugs are traded by the syndicates which cannot operate unless they have active political patronage. He asked the government to reveal the road map to burst these syndicates as drugs are destroying future of our next generation.
Asserting that the government has taken no effective steps to destroy the drug racket operating from Gujarat, Khera regretted that the NIA is also silent on interrogations and arrests, if any, made in eight months of its investigations into the smuggling through Mundra port. He wondered if the NIA was handed over the probe to let off Adani and his port officials because he is a friend of PM Modi and so he cannot be touched by any government agency.
Khera released a press release detailing the drugs seized from the Gujarat ports since July 2017. A major haul of Rs 175-crore worth drug was made in January 2020 from Pakistani fishermen bringing it in their boats. In April 2021, the drugs worth Rs 150 crore were seized in Gujarat, followed by the seizure of 90 kg drugs worth Rs 450 crore on April 28 from the Pipavav Port.
In September 2021, three tonnes of drugs worth Rs 21,000 crore were seized. On September 18, another consignment of 30 kg worth Rs 150 crore coming from Iran was seized. The latest is seizure of 52 kg of drugs at Mundra port on Thursday. Khera said his list is unending.
