| Amit Shah sets 2029 deadline to end drug menace, vows to uproot trade | | WAR AGAINST NARCOTICS | | 
Atul Sharma
Early Times Report
Jammu, Sept 22: Union Home Minister Amit Shah threw down a hard deadline on Tuesday: by December 31, 2029, India's drug trade will be uprooted collectively, decisively, and for good. Inaugurating the 3rd National Conference of Anti-Narcotics Task Force (ANTF) Heads at a two-day summit in New Delhi, Shah didn't mince words. Narcotics, he said, are now the most serious threat facing the country and the world, and the time for half-measures is over. He launched anti-drug TVCs, unveiled the NCB's redesigned website, laid foundation stones for new NCB zonal complexes in Lucknow and Dehradun, and honoured the country's best-performing state and UT task forces — all before turning to the real message of the day.
"We ended terrorism in Kashmir. We ended Naxalism. This is harder — but we cannot walk away."
Shah invoked the government's track record against insurgency in the Northeast, militancy in Kashmir and Left-wing extremism as proof that entrenched threats can be broken with sustained resolve. Drugs, he said, are tougher still — but non-negotiable, because a Viksit Bharat by 2047 cannot be built on a generation hollowed out by addiction. India, he reminded the gathering, is the youngest country on earth — which means it also has the most to lose.
Then came the moment that cut through the policy talk. Shah asked officers in the room to do something before they claim to understand this fight: meet the parents of a child lost to drugs. "A weeping mother, a young sister, and a boy who ranked in the top 10 in his Class 10 boards — slowly dying while his helpless parents watch," he said. "There is no greater national loss than this."
The blueprint is the Vision Doc Says ‘not a gram in, not a gram out'
Financial trails and digital footprints, he said, must now run parallel to every drug investigation — because choking cartel money is as important as seizing cartel product.
The campaign's foot soldiers are already mobilising. Of a target of 1 lakh "Nashamukt Mitras" (drug-free friends/volunteers), 46,780 have already been registered and are active. They'll fan out to 10 lakh schools, colleges and institutions nationwide to warn students and sensitise campus authorities — with the district, Shah insisted, as the basic operating unit of the entire fight.
On the international front, Shah called for a dedicated drive to deport and blacklist foreign nationals accused in drug cases, and to hunt down and extradite fugitives running supply chains into India from abroad — alongside greater use of the PIT-NDPS Act and tighter coordination with public prosecutors to convert seizures into convictions.
Officers from 36 states and UTs, along with government departments and stakeholders, are attending the two-day conference — which Shah framed not as another meeting, but as the moment India's anti-drug fight turns from roadmap into reckoning. |
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