Hry organising meet to evolve joint strategy for combating drug menace in north India

The Haryana government is organising a meet here tomorrow to come up with a joint strategy for combating drug menace in the northern states of the country.

An invite for the meeting has been, among others, sent to the chief ministers of Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, official sources said.

Punjab Chief Minister Amarinder Singh told reporters here, on the sidelines of an event, that he would attend the meeting to discuss the issue of drugs and draw out a joint strategy to combat the problem.

He said Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had called him up yesterday to invite him for the meeting, and he accepted it.

Underlining the need for collective efforts by all the states to counter the menace, the Punjab chief minister said that he himself had initiated the process several weeks ago with a letter to the chief ministers of the neighbouring states.

No state can afford to ignore the drugs issue, which has extremely dangerous implications for our future generations, he said.

While the Punjab government was going all out to wipe out the menace, it needed the support of neighbouring states in view of the inter-state smuggling of drugs, many cases of which had come to the fore in recent weeks, Amarinder Singh said.