Ghoongat-clad Fazilka women shed coyness, help police nail peddlers

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, August 30

Ghoongat-clad women dare not speak before the male members of their family in Khu Wali Dhab village near the international border with Pakistan in Fazilka district. But they are playing a key role in the government’s anti-drug campaign, whispering information about addicts and peddlers to a lady inspector and constables of the Punjab Police at a special meeting against drugs.

Initiatives for humane approach

• The police have taken a number of initiatives for a humane approach in tackling the drug menace following a number of deaths due to drug overdose or adulterated intoxicants
• Police officials have also been insisting at various meetings with other wings of the government that all departments have to come together to de-addict the youths and rehabilitate them
• “The police are not just focusing on arresting the drug smugglers. We are trying for involvement of the community to identify the addicts and peddlers to bring them back into the mainstream,” said DGP Yadav

In Ferozepore, another border district, SHO Harinder Singh uses a loudspeaker atop a police vehicle at Basti Shekhan Wali village to spread awareness against drugs and promise reward to the informers.

These two are among a large number of ‘foot soldiers’ or ‘frontline warriors’ of the Punjab Police who have become activists against drugs under a community outreach programme started by DGP Gaurav Yadav to take the fight against drugs to the grassroots. Many of these actions by the cops have gone viral on social media. At the same time, the Police Department, too, is circulating many videos of these campaigns on their social media handles. Earlier, many civilian activists had taken this role on social media but most of them had a brush with the law, as they directly confronted alleged drug peddlers or smugglers, leading to law and order problems.

“We are making an effort to involve everyone in our endeavours to check the menace of drugs. The police are not just focusing on arresting the smugglers. We are trying to involve the community to identify the addicts and peddlers to bring them back into the mainstream,” said DGP Yadav.

Inspector Veera Rani of Fazilka said under Operation Nishchay, they are reaching out to women. “We motivated women to attend our meetings but it took some time to convince them. The veil-clad women live in a male-dominated family and social structure, but they always had the inside information on addicts and peddlers,” she said.

The women were given paper slips to put down the names of the addicts or peddlers. “But some of them who don’t know to write whispered the names in our ears,” revealed Inspector Veera Rani.

The move paid off immediately: The Fazilka police had a list of about 650 known addicts in the region, and the women gave them information about 10 others.

In Bathinda, the police recently activated their biggest source of information in the rural areas — the village chowkidaars. Over the years, the relationship between the police and the watchmen had been affected due to a change in police strategies and urbanisation. The police recently provided them with shoes, uniforms and imparted basic training to them to make them frontline warriors. “The watchmen have excellent information about the whole village. They were developed as a credible source of information,” said IPS officer Deepak Pareek, who had started the initiative.

In Hoshiarpur, Inspector Usha Rani identified and helped a number of drug-addict youth in Mehtiana and arranged for their de-addiction. Sub-Inspector Davinder Kumar organised anti-drug seminars and meetings in Gurdaspur. Kapurthala SP Rupinder Kaur has organised nukkad nataks (street-plays) to spread awareness.