To tackle the growing drug abuse among students, the Jammu and Kashmir government has decided to make the installation of CCTVs around educational institutions mandatory.
The decision to monitor schools and colleges comes amid heightened concerns that youngsters, mostly students, are falling prey to drug addiction.
Students having access to psychotropic substances has caused an alarm in Kashmir.
The move to install CCTV is aimed at regularly monitoring the health and behaviour of students for timely intervention, prevention, and counselling.
Apart from making CCTV installation mandatory, Education Minister Sakina Itoo has also called for community involvement to check the menace. Her Ministry proposed monitoring committees comprising parents, civil society members, and religious leaders.
The committees will receive support from the Education Department after they submit their monthly report on the actions they have taken.
Religious leaders have been regularly highlighting the dangers of drug addiction and urging parents to keep an eye on their children to prevent them from falling into drug addiction.
Hurriyat Conference leader Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, head of Jama Masjid, Kashmir’s largest mosque, has often spoken against the hazards of drug addiction and has appreciated the police for their efforts to counter the threat.
Narcotics are mostly smuggled into Kashmir from Pakistan. Jammu and Kashmir Police have launched a crackdown against narco smuggling and categorised the proceeds from the sales of drugs as narco terror. The police have come down hard on individuals involved in narco-terror and attacked their properties.
Some drugs are making their way to Jammu and Kashmir from Punjab.
During the last five years, huge consignments of narcotics worth hundreds of crores have been seized by police in Jammu and Kashmir.
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Investigations by police have revealed that narco-smugglers have links with terrorists. It was found that due to the strict action by the police and the NIA against secret funding to terrorists, proceeds from the sale of narcotics have emerged as their main source to fund their activities.
According to Dr Yasir Rather, in charge of psychiatry at the Institute of Mental Health and Neuroscience (IMHANS), coordination between police, doctors, and government departments has been very effective in countering the threat of drug abuse.“The number of drug addiction cases has declined,” he said. However, he warned about the growing use of synthetic drugs.
“These drugs are far too dangerous to treat,” he added, attributing their spread to the disruption of traditional narcotic flows by police and other agencies.
