Amit Shah mandates ruthless crackdown on drug cartels

The Home Minister characterized the current anti-drug campaign as a pivotal effort for the nation's future, urging a dual approach: uncompromising enforcement against kingpins and cartels, paired with compassionate rehabilitation for addiction victims. Shah emphasized that the era of routine administrative meetings must end, demanding that future NCORD sessions focus exclusively on measurable results and effective implementation of enforcement decisions.

To facilitate this, the government is pushing for real-time intelligence sharing through centralized portals, where Chief Secretaries and Police Chiefs must provide timely data on criminal activity. Shah highlighted the transition in enforcement intensity by citing seizure statistics: authorities confiscated 11.8 million kilograms of synthetic drugs between 2014 and 2026, a sharp increase from the 2.6 million kilograms seized in the preceding decade. The valuation of these intercepted narcotics rose from 40,000 crore rupees to approximately 1,84,000 crore rupees over the same periods.

Beyond traditional smuggling routes, the government is prioritizing the monitoring of dark web marketplaces and the destruction of illicit labs producing synthetic substances. Shah called for a unified national platform involving community leaders, youth organizations, and public figures to sustain this momentum, ensuring that the state response remains strictly roadmap-based and free from operational confusion.