Seems the ban on public smoking is gradually going up in smoke, at least within the limits of Kochi city.
As per records available with the City Police, the number of cases on the use of tobacco has marked a sharp increase ever since the district was declared the first smoke-free tourism destination five years ago. In 2012, the City Police registered just 32 cases under the Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products Act (COTPA), which rose to 79 in the following year.
The number of cases made a quantum jump to reach 647 in the following year, which further rose to 993 in 2015. According to officials, about half of the cases registered under the Act were for lighting up in public while people have been also booked for related offences including the sale of banned tobacco products.
While the police may attribute the rise in cases to heightened vigil, every other street corner in the city has a different story to tell. The claims not withstanding, one can still see people casually smoking in public places, even right under the nose of top police officers.
Meanwhile, officials are more worried about the school and college students going past just tobacco products and graduating to drugs such as ganja. Their investigations have revealed that drug rackets are gradually have built up networks in several of these educational institutions and even recruited students from here as supply agents.
It hasn't taken long for things to return to ‘normal’ in the riverside villages of Periyar.
After a brief hiatus, the mining mafia has begun returning to the sand-filled river bed of Periyar and the police are keeping a tight leash over the bathing ghats along the river belt. The revival of mining operations came to light when the police nabbed a three-member gang from Mangalappuzha near Aluva about two weeks ago.
“As against the previous times, they were found to be employing more migrant workers this time. This will help them reduce the cost of operations as well as to block the progress of investigation after a certain point,” pointed out an official with the Ernakulam Rural police.
The excavation operations have begun at a small-scale level at different locations simultaneously. The best time to see the action will be around midnight but it's also the most unsafe for those who don’t belong to the locality.
Excavation of sand, mostly illegal, to meet the growing requirements of the booming construction industry in and around Kochi had put the police and revenue officials on their toes for long.
The police, however, managed to bring the miners under control by implementing a round the clock monitoring mechanism and booking the offenders under the Goonda Act
Contribution by Hiran Unnikrishnan
