MUMBAI: The Narcotics Control Bureau (NCB) is on a special mission to Goa. Instead of hunting for drug peddlers, it is hunting for an office to make its first foray into India’s largest drug supply and distribution centre, controlled by some of the biggest international drug cartels. The bureau has finally woken up to the fact that it does not have a presence in Goa.
Sources in the ministry of home affairs and NCB said the bureau would open a regional office in Goa in the first quarter of next year, after the tourist season is almost over there. Hamstrung by a non-existent intelligence gathering apparatus in Goa, the NCB has not been able to make any inroads into the drug mafia operating in the country’s largest narcotics market.
“It is well known that North Goa attracts tourists looking for good quality drugs sold cheap like cocaine, hashish, LSD, ecstasy or synthetic party drugs,” a senior NCB official in Delhi told DNA over the phone.
The ministry of home affairs has approved creation of a regional NCB office in Goa. The Goa office had been in the pipeline for some years and got delayed because of bureaucratic hurdles, said officials on condition of anonymity. Sources in Delhi and Mumbai said they were looking for an office space in Panjim. The regional office will be headed by an NCB official of the rank of SP, who will initially head a team of four intelligence officers.
“Once we decide on an office and sort out infrastructure, we will finalise officials to be posted there. As we will be starting from scratch, we will look for officials who have a high level of motivation,” said an official in New Delhi.
In the first year, the officials will work their way up the drug mafia and develop sources.
t_mayank@dnaindia.net
