‘Afghanistan mainly responsible for drug menace in Pakistan’

ISLAMABAD: Ministry of Narcotics Control Federal Secretary Iqbal Mehmood on Tuesday said that Pakistan was the victim of drug menace mainly because of immense poppy cultivation in Afghanistan.

He said this while addressing an anti-drugs seminar jointly organized by the Mass Communication department of National University of Modern Languages (NUML) and Ministry of Narcotics Control where he was the chief guest.

NUML Rector Major General Ziaud Din Najam (r), NUML Director General Brig Muhammad Ibrahim, Anti-Narcotics Force (ANF) Enforcement Director Brig Saghir Kamran, Dean of Social Sciences Mufti Jamil, NUML Mass Communication department head and other heads of departments, faculty members and a large number of students also attended the event.

Iqbal Mehmood said that Afghanistan was the major reason behind the menace of drugs in the country because the country was badly affected by the smuggling of drugs from Afghanistan. He further said that during the Taliban era in Afghanistan, poppy cultivation was reduced to zero percent but after their fall, poppy cultivation was resumed.

Iqbal Mehmood said that with limited resources, they were doing their best to control the inflow of drugs.

ANF Director Brig Saghir said that their mission was to free Pakistan from the menace of drugs and ANF was taking every possible step for that. He said that in Pakistan poppy cultivation was reduced to zero through demand reduction.

NUML Rector Major General Ziaud Din Najam (r) said that Drugs had become a global threat.

He said that Almighty created humans as the best of all creations and the youth must keep this thing in mind in order to keep themselves safe from the menace. He stressed the need for awareness seminars and praised the Mass Communication department head for organising a seminar on such an important issue.