Team Jammu for stringent law to deal with cross-border narcotic smuggling

Team Jammu, a non-political organisation, today termed as "historic" the Governor N N Vohra's directive for verification of all traders engaged in cross-LoC trade and said more stringent laws were needed to deal with narcotic smuggling from across the border.

"The drug menace in the state is alarmingly increasing with each passing year. Pakistan is destroying the lives of our youth and also using Jammu and Kashmir as a base to smuggle the narcotics to other parts of the country," Team Jammu chairman Zorawar Singh told reporters here.

Vohra had yesteday ordered the verification of all traders who are engaged in cross-LoC trade within one month and deregistration of those with doubtful antecedents besides asking for an effective mechanism to detect smuggling of narcotics or banned items.

"It is a historic decision taken by the Governor and will help monitoring the trade. Pakistan's ISI is pumping narcotics into the state under the garb of the trade and the successive governments as well as the legislators form the treasury and opposition benches have failed to take note of the growing threat and bring a legislation to deal with it sternly," Singh said.

He said Pakistan was resorting to narco-terrorism to ruin the lives of the youth.

"All of us - irrespectively of our political affiliation, religion, caste, creed and regions - need to stand up together to eradicate this menace which is spreading like a cancer and save our future generations," Singh said.