Soon ‘Rustom’ to save youths from drug abuse in HP (original) (raw)

Solan SP Gaurav Singh said, “Rustom, as the name suggests, means a 'warrior'. This project will focus on the youth who have been marginalised and sidelined due to drug abuse." (Representational Photo)

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Soon ‘Rustom’ to save youths from drug abuse in HP

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Fifteen-year-old Monu (name changed) from Solan in Himachal Pradesh takes chitta (heroin) with his friends after school. He is not the only one as the Solan police department says that the number of such youths in the state is astounding.

To stop the menace and to save the youths, the Solan police department has come up with a unique initiaive – project ‘Rustom’. Under the project, Rustom (meaning warriors) are the youths in the age group of 14-35 years, who are suffering from drug abuse but are also fighting all odds to once again enter the mainstream.

The initiative, which will be started from Solan, is in its initial stage as all the modalities are still being worked out. A special team of 20 members will also be formed to identify the target group and also contact various departments such as drug de-addiction centers to collect the data.

Talking to The Indian Express, Solan SP Gaurav Singh said, “Rustom, as the name suggests, means a ‘warrior’. This project will focus on the youth who have been marginalised and sidelined due to drug abuse, or any involvement in drug peddling, minor cases of smuggling and those who are not able to focus on their career due to the criminal cases against them. Such youth, the number of which is astounding ,have been rebuked or left apart by the society and even by their own families. Under this project, we target the affected youth and will try to bring such youth of the state and particularly of the district, who for us are the warriors who are fighting all the adversities, and would be streamlined into the main society.”

He added that children, parents, teachers etc who are aware of any such people can contact them. “We can help them by associating them with our project. We have constituted a dedicated 20-member team that would be looking into the project. The team has members ranking from the SP to a police constable. There is a dedicated number (01792226123) on which such youths can contact us and we would make our best efforts to get them back into the mainstream without disclosing their identities.” he said.

Singh added that over 300 youths are on their radar. “Recently as many as 12 offenders were arrested in the drugs case, who were the suppliers of chitta and it also included two Nigerian residents. It was during their investigations, that the police department came to know the details about hundreds of youngsters from Himachal who were in constant touch with these peddlers. We have a fair amount of information with us about all these people and they are on our surveillance, and if they are caught, strict action would be taken against them,” he said, adding that people can also contact them on the helpline number and police will ensure their identities are not disclosed and would help them come out of this situation.

“More than 300 youths have been identified and some of them have already been contacted. There are several social activities under this project in which we will include them without disclosing their identities in activities like traffic and crowd management, buddy squads, who would be identifying youths from schools and colleges who are under the influence of drug abuse and would involve them also in the project. We want the most vulnerable youths to come forward and contact us. We would be silently engaging them, without them getting noticed by the society so that their identities are not known,” he said.