Minister of State Engr Muhammad Baligh Ur Rehman attended the Drug Burning Ceremony as a Chief Guest arranged by Anti Narcotics Force at DHA, Valley Islamabad on Thursday.
Speaking on the occasion, the Minister stated the occasion enables us to come together and pledge to fight against this menace of drugs. We have come a long way in our fight against drugs, our firm zero tolerance stance and comprehensive approach of tackling drugs has worked well for us.
He further added that we have kept our fields and mountains free from poppy but unfortunately regional situation especially mass production of narcotics in Afghanistan (Producer of 75% of world’s total opiate production) have been challenging for us.
Drug worth billions of dollars were burnt, this shows the efforts and accomplishment of ANF in fighting against drug trafficking, said the state minister. Knowing the importance of this force Government of Pakistan has increased the budget of ANF to 50%. ANF filed 1337 drugs related cases, arrested 1642 people involved in drug trafficking, and confiscated 345.54 tons of drugs of the value of trillions of rupees in international market in 2014-2015.
Renowned people from sports and arts; Jamal Shah, Umar Gul, Fahad Mehboob, Shahnaz Sheikh also spoke on the occasion and talked about physical and creative activities to get rid of this menace. Minister of state assured them that government is giving due importance to civics, creativity, character building and physical and sports activities in National Action Plan and in National Education Policy, which would help our youth to be on the right track.
