Drug menace, notorious criminal-drug traffickers?nexus, illegal cannabis cultivation, foreign connections in narcotics trade, and drug overdose deaths, primarily of?teenagers studying in college and university, have put Himachal Pradesh at risk of turning into a new “drug hub” – an alarming situation in ‘dev-bhumi,'?the land of deities and Gods.

The new development that?has emerged in Kangra—the state’s biggest district, bordering Punjab, is perhaps more deadly than what was happening in districts of?Kullu, Shimla, Una, Chamba, Sirmaur, Solan, and Kinnaur, where the cannabis–based drug racket with international connections and mafia gangs has been trading charas, ganja, and opium for the past three to four decades.

Even as drugs like “chitta”—the most dangerous and refined form of heroin, are being smuggled to the state via Punjab, which gets regular international border supplies through drones and foot peddlers, Himachal Pradesh can’t be in a denial mode, admits State’s Director General of Police Sanjay Kundu, who was assigned a night-vision operation organised in Kullu to destroy illegally cultivated cannabis crop in an area of 235 bighas of forest land leading to the arrest of 34 persons, beside huge seizures.

"We are striving that Manikaran Valley does not fall into the trap of becoming a narco tourism destination. I ask citizens to share any information relating to drugs and we promise that the source of information will not be disclosed at any cost,” he says. ?Yet this was an over-delayed annual symbolic exercise that the police have been undertaking every year ahead of the harvest season.

The real problem however, remains untouched, says O P Sharma, a former senior central Narcotics Bureau personnel. "Drug mafia sitting outside the state or the country continue to call shots and manage to trade worth crores in Himachal Pradesh engaging Nepali nationals and locals to cultivate the weed and then smuggle the end-product. They are still out of reach from the hands of the law. The chitta doses are killing the youth?and Punjab continues to act as a route to this dreaded menace. Note the drug overdose deaths going unreported in the state,” he cautions.

Nevertheless, Superintendent of Police Kullu Shalini Agnihotri has successfully?busted a criminal–drug smuggling nexus in the district. Agnihotri had fruitful tenures in Kullu and Mandi as District Superintendent of Police before she was brought to Kangra by the Congress government led by Sukhwinder Singh Sukhu.

Kangra police have arrested two persons, one of them Rohit @Chhottu a murder convict, who has earlier jumped the parole, seized some weapons, and illegally trafficked drug consignment to Himachal Pradesh. The third accused, Rajiv Kaushal, an alleged criminal from Una, who purportedly has links with the Lawrence Bishnoi group was recently arrested by Punjab Police with 21 country-made pistols. The nexus also involved a murder accused, who also allegedly has links with the notorious Bishnoi group, with a dozen criminal cases pending in different states including Punjab and Haryana.

Agnihotri told Outlook that it was on September 6, 2023, that the?duty police personnel at Police Post Tanda found an abandoned bag. Upon searching, three country-made pistols, two sharp-edged knives, 40 live rounds of different make, and 5,250 tablets of Alprazolam – a scheduled contraband were retrieved. A local lead, during investigations, revealed that a suspicious person had stayed in a private hotel at Shahpur, who eventually turned out to be Vinay Bhandari, a history-sheeter.

On his arrest a few days later, he was also found to be carrying two more country-made pistols, a loaded magazine, two live rounds, a cell phone, and a Wi-Fi modem. “These pistols were similar in design and make to the ones seized at Tanda. Further investigation revealed that Vinay Bhandari was involved in a daylight shooting near Metro Mall in Zirakpur, Punjab, and has been on the run since then. He was injured during the said incident due to a gun-shot explosion and took refuge in Himachal Pradesh,” she informed. Police investigations thereafter found that Bhandari was assisted by Rohit @Chhottu from Jawalamukhi. It was him?who had arranged Bhandari’s mysterious stay at different places under different names.

Rohit, besides being a murder convict, and one who had also jumped the parole, is also facing several cases under the NDPS Act in Kangra and Una district in Himachal Pradesh. He also has links with drug peddlers in Amritsar, where he was also arrested. During interrogation, he revealed that he bought the 5,250 tablets of Alprazolam from Amritsar and was proceeding towards Nangal when he received a message from Rajiv Kaushal. Vinay Bhandari handed over three country-made pistols and ammunition to Rohit for safe custody.

However, due to the presence of police teams on the Tanda road for night checking and nakabandi, Rohit had hidden the bag at the spot hoping to pick it up later at an opportune time but the same was recovered by the police team. In Mandi, a 19-year-old?youth, who was earlier studying at a university in Chandigarh, reportedly died of drug overdose while another student of a private university at Solan was arrested by the police for his involvement in drug peddling from Bagha border, a village near Indo-Pak border. The student himself an addict, landed up in the illegal drug trade to fund his doses and also make a fast buck, and earn money.

A special investigation team of the police has successfully apprehended one of the accused, involved in cross-border drug trafficking near the Atari-Wagah border. "It was discovered, during secret investigations, that a student named Daksh Thakur, was involved in the procurement and distribution of “chitta.” Daksh Thakur, who hails from Una, Himachal Pradesh, was found in possession of 12 grams of “chitta," a police official at Solan informed.

The 23-year-old student pursuing an M. Pharma degree was taken into police custody for five days after the seizure of drugs. During the investigation, the police also inquired about his supplier, which led to the revelation that he had been in contact with Mangal Singh, a 33-year-old drug trafficker residing in the Atari tehsil of Amritsar, Punjab. Mangal Singh had been involved in the continuous trafficking of heroin in Himachal Pradesh, particularly in Una, Mandi, and Solan.