Ninety-two is the number of active drug dealers, who have literally been given a free run in the city.
The police have failed to pin down the sharks of this lucrative trade, though they have a list of the top drug lords in Chennai. They have, instead, time and again, arrested only petty peddlers thus doing little to prevent the drugs trade from thriving.
Vidhya Lakshmi (54) is a successful college professor, but she has to live with death threats and assaults from her 21-year-old son, a marijuana addict.
“Shanth* was really good at studies and made it to the topmost engineering college in the State. Over the past two years, however, there has been drastic change in my son’s behaviour. The death threats began after I found drugs in his bag recently,” she says.
Hardcore users mostly comprise college-goers and sometimes, even school students, say drug peddlers operating in Chennai.
The contraband is easily available with enforcement agencies turning a blind eye. Marijuana, also known as ganja (cheapest available drug), can be sourced with ease as the 92 big-time dealers and their chain of peddlers have spread their wings across the city.
The police haven’t busted a drugs gang in the last few years but only made arrests following clashes between dealing groups that sometimes result in murders.
“The widening drug distribution scene in the city is the root cause of many crimes, including murders committed under the influence of narcotics. These days, many parents and even school managements approach us for advice on weaning their wards from the drug habit,” says a senior police officer, admitting the drugs scene in Chennai has turned alarming.
With the Central government’s Narcotics Control Bureau and the State’s Narcotics Intelligence Bureau concentrating on psychedelic and other high-end drug smugglers, experts feel a narcotics agency under the city police is the need for the hour.
“The Central Crime Branch of the city police used to handle narcotics cases but these days only petty drug cases are booked by the local police, and those too are often ‘made-up’ cases. In places like Ashok Nagar, Pulianthope and St. Thomas Mount, the trade has grown out of the reach of the police,” the officer says.
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BOOMING BUSINESS
> No. of major active drug dealers -- 92 > Active women dealers -- 39 > T. Nagar, an all-woman dealer district with two women operating from 1995, remains a tough nut to crack for the police. > The Chennai City Police lack a dedicated narcotics control unit to curb the escalating and omnipresent drug trade.The city's drug scene seems to be thriving but there has been a decline in police crackdown. No major gang has been busted over the past couple of years | |
Pulianthope | 17 (inc. 8 women) |
St.Thomas Mount | 12 (inc. 5 women) |
Madhavaram | 10 (inc. 4 women) |
Adyar | 9 (inc. 2 women) |
Ambattur | 7 (inc. 4 women) |
Anna Nagar | 5 (inc. 2 women) |
2013 | 167 | Over 40 (over 300 kg contraband seized) |
2014 | 121 | Less than 25 (nearly 600 kg seized) |
Source: Chennai City Police