Planning minister says rooting out drug culture imperative for war on terror
Federal Minister for Planning and Development, Ahsan Iqbal Wednesday said that it was impertive to root out drug culture from the country for getting required results of war on terror.
“The government is focussing on capacity building of law enforcement agencies to introduce modern techniques and latest equipment in their training so that they can work for eradicating menace of drugs from our homeland,” he said, while addressing a national conference on E-Learning for Pakistan’s Law Enforcement, organised by United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime.
The minister said that the country needs agents of change and leaders in every field and for the purpose a proposal of establishing modern police station in the country is being introduced.
He said there is always room for improvement and need for capacity building cannot be over in any sector, adding, in our country the private sector has much more dynamic organisation but unfortunately the government institutions are still following traditional methods so it is time to get services of international organization to train our security agencies.
Sharing his remarks on the occasion, Narcotics Control Secretary Muhammad Akbar Khan Hoti said on our West Iran is situated while at South a large costal belt is there and on East Indian borders lies so they have a huge challenge to control drug trafficking. He said due to Afghanistan they are facing challenge of poppy cultivation which result in drug trafficking adding, “Pakistan will not allow supply of drugs from its land at any cost”.
The secretary said these challenges demand new enforcement skills, knowledge and awareness to strengthen law enforcement mechanism.
Speaking on the occasion, UNODC Representative Cesar Guedes said UNODC’s e-learning platform has delivered training to more than 15,000 law enforcement personnel in Pakistan.
This amounts to more than 100,000 hours of training including searches and interdiction techniques, evidence collection and preservation, detecting and investigating transnational organized crimes, criminal intelligence, and crime scene investigations.
In this endeavour twenty Pakistani law enforcement agencies partnered with UNODC for training of their personnel.
The conference was attended by senior representatives, heads/deputies of security agencies and their respective training establishments along with members of the government of Pakistan ministries, diplomatic missions, UN agencies, international NGOs, and experts from the academia.
